


i dreamt again that i still knew you well

by DarlingImpi



Series: Angels and Gods [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Episode: s04e02 Are You There God? It's Me Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, M/M, Only references up to the blood of olympus, PJO/SPN Monsters, Percy/Dean bromance, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to things that probably did not exist in 2005, Rewrite, Rising of the Witnesses, Road Trips, Season/Series 01, Slow Burn, except for the first two books of mango chutney, i haven't read anything past that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27623483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingImpi/pseuds/DarlingImpi
Summary: and a thousand shades of golden 'round you fell....Three years ago, Sam Winchester lost his boyfriend in a house fire. He fell back into a life of hunting monsters with his brother, taking down all sorts of enemies and learning what the demons had in store for him. These days, though, the creatures that can talk have been talking about something that seems more threatening than Azazel's army. A hurricane is brewing, and all the brothers are hearing about these days is a Prophecy...*Greeks and Geeks rewrite*
Relationships: Percy Jackson/Sam Winchester
Series: Angels and Gods [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/747759
Comments: 54
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Four years ago, in November of 2016, an idea was born. I came up with the idea of this crossover for NaNoWriMo (trying to boost my wordcount via fanfiction) because I was thinking about monsters, and how the Winchesters would react to Greek legends. That spiraled a bit, until five months later I put up the first chapter of Greeks and Geeks. I've only ever had positive reviews come from that, and yet somehow, fifteen chapters and two years in, I dropped the ball.
> 
> One day about a month, month and a half ago, I saw a review posted, and I'm not gonna lie... I teared up a little. Someone had taken the time to congratulate my story despite it being dormant for all this time... and beyond that, they assured me that life goes on, and that even if I didn't finish it they appreciated it had existed. They bid me such a soft farewell.
> 
> I realized then that while maybe I never love my writing, many other people do. I put some value into somebody's life (even if it just takes them an hour to read and move on) and I present something that nobody else had before. It finally struck home to me that sometimes, people like what I have to offer. And as someone who struggled with anxiety, this meant so much to me.
> 
> Politely I responded, lol bitch u thought, and... I decided I could refine it. Do it again, but better, because I've grown as a writer over these years. This project is adding a lot back into my life, and I really am thankful for all the people reading this, old and new.
> 
> Anyways, I just really wanted to thank you (all of you!!!) for giving me the kick in my ass. And... this is dedicated to Mystic_Ender, for really turning me around. Thank you so much.
> 
> I owe all y'all a lot, so thanks <3

**AN/: THE WORST FUKCING PART IS THAT IT’S SET IN 2005 SO I CAN’T USE VINE REFERENCES AND THEY ALL HAVE FLIP PHONES. Twilight came out in early october that year, so unfortunately Percy decided to read it, and is therefore able to reference it. TIHI**

**Also to whoever answered my survey with the single word, “smut,” I like your audacity. We’ll see.**

  
  


_October 31, 2005_

“Listen, Sam, I don’t know what you’ve got against arriving on time, but if we don’t leave now, they’ll be gone by the time that we finally get there.” Percy folded his arms, leaning against the doorframe of their bedroom. “Besides, Halloween only happens once a year. If I don’t get my fix in now, you’re the one that’s going to suffer for it.”

Sam looked up at him from under his bangs, sitting on the bed as he was. “You’re such a dork. I’ve never met anybody so excited for Halloween.”

Percy took an affronted stance. “You haven’t met many good people, then! Halloween is when you get to shed your sins for a night and hook up with catgirls and boys.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried, then? Get the lemon spray?”

Percy actually laughed at this, grabbing Sam by the hand and pulling him bodily up off the bed. “Nah, I’ve always been a dog person anyways.”

Hands still linked together, they left the apartment and started walking to where Jess was waiting for them.

Percy’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to see a text from Annabeth. _Happy Halloween! Try not to explode something tonight, Seaweed Brain._

He showed it to Sam. “I guess I have a bit of a track record.” He said, trying to look unamused. “In my defense, it’s never intentional.”

“Yeah, you don’t really fit the bad boy trope.” Sam said. “Maybe comedy relief?”

“Sam! My heart!” Percy clutched his chest. “I’d be offended, but….you think I’m funny?” He said.

Sam rolled his eyes. “If that’s what you’re taking out of this, then sure.”

Percy preened. “Well, of course! Gods and monsters fear my snark.”

Sam eyed him for a moment, then thankfully decided he was joking. Gods know what he’d have done if he thought Percy thought monsters were real. He might decide that either Percy was insane, or he would see through the mist, believe him, and get involved in something way above his pay grade.

Percy was trying to leave all that stuff behind, too. He kept in contact with Annabeth and the others (though he still didn’t talk much with Calypso--what could he possibly say?) from both camps--how could he not? But he was done with Prophecies, done with monsters, and doing his best to live a normal, mortal life with his normal boyfriend.

“Did you wanna say hi?” Percy asked. Sam and Annabeth had met once, and hit it off, and it had been the hardest hour of Percy’s life to keep up with. Sam called him a dork, sure, but in reality he was a massive fucking nerd.

“Sure.” Sam said.

Instead of typing anything, though, Percy snapped a selfie with the two of them, and sent it, with the caption _Innocent Child Gets Roasted by Two Geniuses._

Annabeth immediately responded, perfectly in character. _Genii*_

“I can’t win.” Percy complained. “Surrounded on all sides.”

Sam looked smug. 

They crossed the parking lot and entered the establishment (Percy was loath to call it anything as nice as “restaurant”) where Jess was waiting for the two off them.

He didn’t see her immediately, but apparently she did, because all of a sudden a sexy nurse was giving him a tight hug.

“Hey, Jess, hey.” He said, peeling her off. “Sam’s right here.”

She gave him the same treatment, and Percy smirked at Sam over the top of her head.

“Do I even want to ask why you’re so late?” She said, leading them over to a table. “I’ve already been approached by three of the staff here!”

“Sorry.” Sam said.

“We walked here.” Percy said. “I’ll give it a five out of ten. As transportation methods go, there are faster, but the fresh air is nice.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Right. Well, before the fun begins, I just wanted to congratulate Sam on his LSAT. I heard you did really well.”

“You need to stop bragging.” Sam told Percy. “You’re not the one who took the test.”

“Guilty.” Percy laughed. “But to be fair, you’re awesome.”

Sam tried not to look pleased with himself, but Percy could see it anyways. Personally, he thought Sam should have reason to look like that more often. Percy didn’t know much about his childhood, but he knew that Sam didn’t have a lot of achievements that he was proud of, and he deserved all the wins he could get.

“By the way, nice outfit.” He told Jess. “I’m sure you’re going to save so many lives.”

She pursed her lips. “Percy, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not in the medical program.”

Percy faked surprise. “I had no idea! Why didn’t you say anything? You’ve kept this lie for how long?”

“Dork.” Sam muttered under his breath.

“I heard that.” Percy said. “And I want you to know that I completely agree.”

Jess smiled at the two of them. “You’re adorable.”

* * *

Percy woke up some time in the middle of the night, after he and Sam had both made it back and were in bed. At first he couldn’t pinpoint why, so he kept still and listened quietly. He was generally a heavy sleeper, but he’d spent months with Lupa and months with nightmares, so it wasn’t as hard for him to wake up if something was wrong.

And something was definitely wrong; his “spidey-senses” were going off like a--well, he hesitated to say siren, but the thought was there.

Hopefully, he was just imagining things. And if not, hopefully he could take care of it before Sam woke up.

He slipped out of bed, freezing when Sam started to move. After a moment, though, he settled down, and Percy padded quietly out of the room, listening for the noise.

He heard it again, and realized there was an intruder in the living room, doing his damnedest to remain quiet. He had nothing on Percy, of course, but that was to be expected. He was a mortal, after all.

He hadn’t even noticed Percy. He just kept going on obliviously, stumbling around the apartment. Percy was amazed he hadn’t knocked something over already.

He slipped around behind the man, and addressed him somewhat imperiously. “I’ll give you five seconds to rethink your choices.”

Percy saw the figure straighten up, shocked but surprisingly good at suppressing his reaction. He imagined the man didn’t have half the night vision Percy did, but he changed his location nevertheless.

“I’m here for someone.” The man said. 

“Well, you’ve got him.” Percy responded. He swept his leg out, intending to trip the man, and catch him before he could hit the ground too hard and wake Sam. Then Percy could just take him outside and be done with it all.

What actually happened, though, was the man catching himself with decent skill and taking the opportunity to strike back at him. He swung at Percy, who dodged around him and pushed him forward. The man stumbled a little, and Percy took the opportunity to land an axe kick on his back in the area of his kidneys.

The man was good at stifling his cry of pain, but he still went down.

Percy pushed him flat on the ground and had his arms behind his back before he could get up. “I gave you time to think. Have you made your choice?”

“You are...surprisingly badass.” The man coughed out. He sounded very begrudgingly impressed. “But I really am just looking for someone. Think I’ve got the wrong place.”

“I’ll say.” Percy agreed. “Here’s some advice: if you’re looking for someone, don’t break into random people’s houses.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be random.” The man muttered. “They told me this is where Sam Winchester lived. You know him?”

“Who is ‘they?’” Percy asked, heart leaping. Was this a crony? Someone had a grudge out on Percy and they sent in someone to kidnap Sam? Use him as a hostage? Percy was stupid to think he could have escaped his godly side. Monsters messing with mortals, though… There had to be an intermediary. 

In any case, Percy wasn’t going to give them the chance.

Before the man he had pinned could speak up, though, the lights flicked on to reveal Sam standing in the doorway. “Percy?”

Percy winced, both from the sudden light and the fact that Sam had just caught him red-handed. Maybe he could just play it off as martial arts training or something…

“Dean?” Sam immediately followed up with, and Percy looked at the man beneath him. This was the brother? Percy felt a little sour. He scrambled off the man, who stood up and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Damn, Sammy, your boyfriend’s got some kick to him.” He commented, not sounding nearly as put out as he should be. He looked smug, obviously waiting for Sam to claim his heterosexuality and get embarrassed by his brother’s assertion. 

Instead, all Sam asked him was “What the hell are you doing here?”

Dean’s smile faltered a little bit, eyes widening as neither of them denied it.

“I was, uh… just looking for a beer.” He said, the lie obvious as the nose on his face.

“No.” Percy said. “You said you were looking for Sam.”

Dean looked startled at the call-out, and Sam narrowed his eyes at him. “You never call. And you show up out of the blue, _in the middle of the night,_ and expect me to want to see you?”

“Don’t be like that.” Dean said, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s um… important.” His eyes darted back and forth between Percy and Sam, and Percy figured out what he wasn’t saying. It was something private to the two of them, and he wanted to say it without Percy in the room.

Percy figured that Sam could handle his brother well enough without him around, so he started to creep off. “You’ve got this covered, Sam. I won’t get in the way.”

Sam’s fingers closed around his wrist. “You know I trust you, Perce. Whatever Dean has to say to me, he can say to me with you.”

Dean sighed tiredly. “Okay, Sammy. Dad’s...gone. He hasn’t been home in a couple of days.”

Sam shrugged. “So?” Percy knew he held some resentment towards his father--in a similar way that Luke had held towards the gods, but different. Just barely.

“He’s probably just working overtime on a Miller time shift. He’ll stumble back in sooner or later.” Sam continued, unimpressed.

Percy watched Dean’s body language. His eyes held a sense of urgency to them, and he was clearly uneasy. Their father was not just passed out drunk somewhere. This was something worse.

“Dad’s on a _hunting_ trip.” Dean elaborated, stressing the hunting part. “And he hasn’t been home in a couple days.” Something about that comment seemed oddly familiar to Percy, but he just couldn’t place it. It was on the tip of his tongue, but for all the gods the final puzzle piece kept eluding him.

Sam went still. Percy looked to him, and every part of his boyfriend had become tense. He looked… a mix of emotions, honestly, but Percy could clearly see the fear and anger there.

“Can you excuse us, Percy?” Sam ground out.

Percy was reluctant to go, considering that whatever Dean was referring to had knocked him extremely off-kilter, but he didn’t want to cause a bigger issue. 

“Alright.” He whispered, kissing Sam on the cheek and slinking off, skulking to the direction of the bedroom. He didn’t go far, though, wanting to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“Dean, you can’t just drop in like this!” Sam was saying. There was a shuffling, as if they were walking to the door. 

“Dad’s missing. We need to find him.” Dean said.

The apartment’s front door swung open, and after a moment, closed. Percy could no longer hear them. He sighed, sliding down the wall. Sam’s brother, who had never called or visited or given any indication of his existence, had just busted into his apartment, and whisked Sam away. Percy really didn’t know how to feel about that, considering the feelings Sam had always expressed about the both of them (his father especially). From the little that Sam had shared, Percy felt he didn’t owe either of them anything.

A thought struck Percy like lightning from an inconvenienced Zeus, and he suddenly realized why the emphasis on hunting had struck something within him.

The Hunters of Artemis. That was how they referred to what they did, right? Chasing monsters across the country, eternally hunting the creepy bastards and asshats. Hunting monsters.

That’d explain Dean’s secrecy, but… it didn’t make sense. The two of them were 100% mortal. Percy had checked, and re-checked once he and Sam had started dating, and unless Sam was adopted, then nobody in his family line had a drop of godly blood. They couldn’t hunt monsters. They wouldn’t be able to see them.

Sam was susceptible to the Mist. It had gotten Percy out of more than a couple scrapes, but he wasn’t fond of using it. But it meant that Sam wouldn’t be able to see monsters.

Their father must have been hunting dangerous game, then. Something that the mortals could actually see.

Percy crept out of the apartment. He wasn’t supposed to eavesdrop, and normally he wouldn’t, but he just needed to confirm to himself that he wasn’t delusional, and that he hadn’t made a mistake when checking Sam. He just needed to be sure.

He walked silently down the stairs, keeping to the shadows. He hid at a point where he could see and hear the brothers, but he’d remain undetectable.

The two of them were walking down the stairs, and they’d made it about halfway down when Percy was finally able to hear them.

“...Or the Devil’s Gates in Clifton? He was missing then, too.” Sam was saying. “He’s always missing, and he's always fine.”

“Not for this long. You gonna come with me or not?” Dean asked. He kept marching down the stairs, and Sam trailed after him.

“No, Dean. I’m done, for good.”

“So, what’re you gonna, live an apple pie life or something? Normal and boring?”

“ _Safe._ ” Sam stressed.

“And that’s why you ran away.” Dean mocked him. He approached a sleek black car, leaning against it and folding his arms.

“It was Dad who said if I was going, I should stay gone. So that’s what I did.”

Percy saw Dean wince. Nevertheless, he still kept with his argument. “Yeah, well, Dad’s in real trouble right now, I can feel it. If he’s not dead already.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I can’t do this without you.” Dean said.

“Yes, you can.”

“Well, I don’t want to.”

Sam turned, his shoulders sinking. Percy could tell this was the moment he acquiesced. He was going to leave, to find his father. And since somehow, the situation was clearly dangerous, Percy was going to be left at home to bite his nails.

 _That’s not going to happen._ Percy snorted to himself. He turned and ran silently back up the stairs. He was going to pack a bag before Sam could even get upstairs, and he was going to convince Sam to let him join them, no matter how much pleading it took. After all, Percy had defeated a giant. He had tracking skills he’d learned from Lupa. He would be invaluable.

Making it to their room, he started gathering everything he’d need and packing it in one of the duffle bags he’d stolen from camp. It still had a couple drachmas and squares of ambrosia in it, as well as a basic first aid kit. At the bottom, there was a bright orange camp shirt that he hadn’t seen in forever. It was slashed and looked like some monster had gotten at part of the hem, but it still reminded him of Long Island.

He missed it a lot. At times, he still wondered how Chiron was doing, and what the new campers were like. What new cabins there were, and new groups of kids. 

Occasionally, Piper or Frank would text him updates on relations between the two camps, and it seemed like everything was going smoothly, even in their absence. The last time all seven of them had been in one room had been over a year ago, though, and as time went on, it seemed less and less likely that they would reunite.

Percy put the shirt back in the duffle bag, and turned to his drawers to see what clean clothes he still had available. He imagined the two of them (three, including Dean) were going to be gone for some time. In the end, he ended up chucking almost everything into his bag.

Once he had it entirely packed, he put it off to the side, and sat back on the bed, waiting for Sam to come back.

It didn’t take too long, either. After Percy had finished packing, he only waited a couple of minutes before Sam reappeared in their bedroom.

He looked shocked to see Percy sitting up, as if he’d expected Percy had gone back to bed.

“Percy,” he said, looking absolutely clueless as to how he was going to broach the subject. “I’m going away for… a couple of days.”

Percy nodded reasonably. “And I’m going with you.”

Sam was totally blindsided. His expression reminded Percy of a fish. And he would know. “What? No!”

“Yep!” He said perkily. “I gotta watch out for you.”

“Percy, you can’t. This is dangerous.” Sam said, doing his best impression of Edward Cullen.

Screw that. Percy was _not_ going to be Bella. “I’m not useless Sam. You’re gonna need me.” Fuck, though, he didn’t want to reveal his past. This was going to require a careful touch.

Thankfully, Sam only seemed focused on making sure Percy wouldn’t join him on his quest. “I don’t want to watch you get hurt.” He turned away from Percy like the conversation was over and started packing his own duffle bag.

Hah. Nice try. “If you think I’m gonna be sitting here twiddling my thumbs like a 1950s housewife while you go off to war, you’re dead wrong.”

“Percy, it’s not that big of a deal, alright?” Sam said, packing his bag with somewhat less efficiency than Percy had.

“Your dad missing is not that big of a deal?” Percy said, putting skepticism into his tone. “Then why are you rushing off in the middle of the night?”

Sam gripped his hair in frustration. “Percy, listen-”

Percy listened, alright. Footsteps were coming down the hallway that Sam seemed oblivious to, and Percy was willing to bet his last dollar that it was Dean.

Sam looked like he was trying to put together a last-minute argument. Before he even started to speak, though, Dean cut in. Point for Percy.

“He can come, Sam.”

Sam whirled on his brother, betrayed. “Are you nuts?”

“Dude, he had me down in less than a minute. He’ll be fine.” Dean seemed confident.

“Don’t you dare fuck up my normal life. This is temporary.” Sam hissed. “I’m not dragging Percy into this.”

“You kind of already did.” Dean said. “Anyways, he’s good in close combat at least. Give him an iron poker and he’ll be golden.”

Percy had been _trying_ to sweep that part under the rug in the hopes that Sam wouldn’t ask him about it. He had been foolish to think it’d go ignored, though.

Sam looked back to Percy. “Where did you even learn to fight like that?”

Percy shifted under his scrutiny. “Summer camp.” Technically not a lie, either, so bonus points. 

“He’s not coming.” Sam said. “Percy, you’re not. No way.”

“I’m an excellent tracker.” Percy said. “I’ll be able to help.”

Sam hung his head. “Sometimes, I really hate your stubborn streak.”

“It’s too late for regrets, Sam! Let’s get this show on the road.”

Dean held up a hand. “One thing, though. No...lovey shit in my car.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Since when has the Impala been yours?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, ultimately, this chapter ended up being 3.5 thousand words of useless chatter and exposition. I think, if my writing goes to plan, next chapter is the one that starts the breaks. Of course, I wasn’t expecting to spend an entire chapter on a car ride, so obviously we don’t all get what we want.  
> Anyways, all of you guys are just super, and I want to thank everyone who’s come to read My Shit Writing 2.0  
> Have a lovely day and don’t forget to stay hydrated. 2020’s almost over.

Percy could tell as they bundled their stuff in the car that Sam wasn’t exactly thrilled with the outcome. He, on the other hand, was immensely relieved. He had never been good with sitting around and waiting (perks of ADHD) and he figured that he’d rather be in the dangerous situation rather than his boyfriend going alone.

Dean, to his credit, was not who Percy had expected him to be. Sam had never enjoyed talking about his family, but one night he’d opened up to Percy, explaining that his father… had been problematic, at best, and that Dean had always deferred to him. Percy had been expecting Dean to be a bit stuck up, kind of like, well… Octavius, from the roman camp. Full of himself and sure of his skill, but useless.

However, Dean was much more charismatic and outgoing. He sideyed Percy once or twice, but he was the one who had advocated for his presence in the first place, and it seemed like he didn’t really have anything negative to say overall.

There had been some arguing between the brothers at first, about whether or not Percy was going to receive “the Talk,” (and Percy didn’t think it was sex ed—Sam knew he had that part covered). Eventually, it seemed like Dean won the argument, and Sam was about to explain something Very Important with Percy. Extremely reluctantly.

Sam had opted to sit with Percy in back, while Dean drove them off to wherever they were headed for the night. Despite his long legs, he only seemed mildly uncomfortable folded up like that.

“Okay, Percy.” Sam cleared his throat, clearly unsure how to breach the subject. “So...you know how I don’t talk a lot about my past?”

Percy nodded encouragingly. Dean did not.

“Right.” Sam went on. “Uh. Sometimes, things are real, um, that you don’t necessarily think are...”

Where was Sam going with this? There was no way that he could be talking about what Percy thought he was talking about. Was he pulling Percy’s leg? He wasn’t from any of the half-blood camps… was he independently trained? Percy decided not to say anything, in case Sam really was talking about something else.

“Like ghosts, for example...” Sam trailed off. 

Oh. Percy crossed his fingers and begged and pleaded to any gods who were listening that Sam was delusional.

“Congratulations?” Percy hedged.

In the front seat, Dean snorted. “What Sammy is trying to say is that there’s things that go bump in the night, and we’re the ones trained to kill them.”

_ But you’re susceptible to the Mist. _ Percy wanted to say.  _ How can you even see them in the first place? _

Sam mistook Percy’s silence for shock. “I know it sounds crazy!” He said. “But we can prove it. Eh…. eventually.”

“This really isn’t inspiring confidence.” Percy said. “But you guys are like ghostbusters or something?”

“See, he gets it!” Dean crowed. “You picked a good one, Sam.”

Sam stared at Percy with wide eyes. “Usually people are a little more freaked out.”

Percy shrugged, trying to play it cool. “I mean, ghost sightings aren’t exactly rare. You gotta figure there’s some truth somewhere. But what does this have to do with your dad?”

Percy’s mouth, unfortunately, was a bit ahead of his brain at that moment. As soon as he finished the question, he put all the pieces together. If Sam and Dean were trained to kill monsters… And their father had gone missing on a “hunt...” It wasn’t hard to figure it out from there. 

He understood the urgency now.

“Something got him.” Dean said. “I showed it to Sam already, but basically, he sent me a voicemail. It was pretty ominous, and yeah, I got the creeps listening to it. But in the background, there was something else.”

“A ghostly voice?” Percy asked. He was only partly joking. A large part of him was still in denial.

Sam nodded seriously. Sam. His normal boyfriend with the good test scores and the neat-freak habits and his inability to cook and late nights studying… His normal boyfriend grew up hunting monsters.

_ Guess we were both chasing the same dream, _ Percy thought bitterly. So much for the domestics.

“You hunt monsters.” Percy said. “Ghosts and shit. That’s… how do you even find them?”

“Patterns in the newspaper.” Dean said. “Phone calls, voicemails like the one Dad sent. Hunter grapevine.”

“There’s a lot of you, then?” Percy asked. His whole world was starting to shake. Here was something he’d thought hidden from the mortals, completely ignorant to the goings on of the mythological world, and there was a group of perfectly ordinary god-free humans just… chasing them down.

It was a little terrifying, to be honest.

Sam shrugged. “Not as many as you would think. People… die. It’s not a good choice to make a career of, which is why  _ I left. _ ” He said pointedly, glaring at the back of Dean’s head.

Dean just carried on faux-innocently. “Just help me with this last job. When we get Dad back, you can resume your little apple-pie life.”

“Is that where we’re going now? The last place you saw him at?” Percy asked, peering out the front windshield. It was completely dark out, and the road was empty apart from them.

“Yeah. Centennial highway—a five-mile stretch of road with disappearances spanning back twenty years.”

“And it’s not a serial killer because…?” Percy said, futilely grasping at the last straw of normality he could reach.

“There were ghosty wavelengths in the voicemail.” Dean said, straightfaced.

“You guys are terrifying.” Percy muttered.

Sam looked at him, stricken, then hung his head. “I’m sorry about this, Percy. I didn’t want you to be scared.”

“I’m not scared  _ of _ you.” Percy emphasized. “I’m scared for you. You just...throw yourself at whatever creepy thing you can find, huh? And you’re not even injured.”

“Don’t get me wrong, there’s a whole boatload of shit.” Dean said. “But it’s better we do it than nobody.”

Percy scooted a bit closer to Sam. “This is crazy.” He said softly.

Sam looked at him. “Yeah.”

“And… I’m not going to call you crazy. If you turn out to be right, this is gonna be epic.” He continued.

“Epic’s not how I’d describe it.” Sam said. “And I don’t want you involved. For real. I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt.”

Percy scoffed, trying to cheer Sam up. “I’m invincible, Sam. Like Achilles. And I’ll have you know, I’m pretty good with a sword.”

“A sword?” Sam questioned incredulously. “Why would you need that?”

“You’d be surprised.” Percy said, trying to skirt around the subject. He’d just been trying to reassure Sam of his safety, but Sam had caught on the bit that Percy was trying to avoid, and now he was just going to keep questioning Percy until he got the answers he wanted.

“Surprise me.” Sam said.

Percy could see Dean perk up in the front seat as well, clearly interested. It looked like he had an audience.

“I, uh. Summer camp?” Percy offered.

“More than two words, Percy.” Sam said, glint in his eye. “What are you holding out?”

_ Uh oh. _ “Well, okay. My mom married a shitty man for noble reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that he sucked huge ass. There was a reason I used to call him Smelly Gabe. He hated my guts, I can’t imagine why.” 

Sam was well used to Percy’s attitude. He knew exactly why.

“So I’d do my best to avoid him. And one summer, I went to this really awesome camp. They had pegasi and everything!”

“Pegasi.” Sam said.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Percy knew he was as subtle as a freight train, but this was taking it to completely new proportions. He had to enact damage control, and quick. “Yeah. It was the mascot. They had statues everywhere, and pegasi on the t-shirts, the main house, everything. And that was where I learned how to use a sword.”

“I can’t believe you never mentioned this before.” Sam said. “It would’ve been cool to know you could wield a sword. You could’ve taught me.”

Percy laughed awkwardly. “Well, it had its share of awful experiences. I just thought it didn’t matter anymore.”

“I meant it when I said you’re badass.” Dean piped up. “Do you still have a sword?”

Percy was caught in an awkward corner. At this point, he really didn’t know what to say. “No, I was never allowed to take them. Camp property, and all that.”

Sam sighed tiredly, and suddenly Percy was reminded that it was still essentially the middle of the night. “Where are we going to sleep?” 

“Dean’s probably going to find us a crap motel.” Sam muttered. “That’s where he thrives.”

“Just because you can get all fancy, College Boy, doesn’t mean we all can. I’m on a budget, remember?”

“You don’t act like it.” Sam bickered. “And technically, it’s not even your money.”

“I worked for it.” Dean retorted. “That makes it mine.”

The argument flew back and forth like something rehearsed, like they hadn’t even spent that long apart. It reminded him of Thalia, a little bit. The way she interacted with Grover and Annabeth.

“No matter what Dean picks, I guarantee I’ll have slept in worse places.” Percy said.

Sam did not look particularly reassured. “Like?”

“A tree.” Percy listed. “Pile of dirt. River. Car on a train. Like, an actual car. Mercedes on a train. Walmart parking lot. Homicidal ranch house.”

“How is a house homicidal?” Dean asked.

“Well, not the house itself.” Percy conceded. “But the owner tried to kill me. So I feel like that counts.”

Sam gave him a look of pure incredulity. “Kill you? Jesus, Percy, what-”

“Like you can talk.” Percy snorted. “You hunt monsters. Do they not hunt back?”

“That’s monsters.” Sam argued. “You don’t hunt monsters, Percy.” If anything, he seemed like he was trying to convince himself of the fact.

Percy didn’t have a chance to say anything else before Dean jumped in. “Anyways, Sam, I’m not planning on finding a place to stop for tonight. It’s about to count as ‘early morning,’ so there’s not really a point, is there? You wanna sleep, sleep in the car.”

Sam grumbled half-heartedly. However, he turned to the side and leaned his head against the window. “You’re not off the hook, Perce.” He mumbled. “When I’m awake, we’re talking.”

He was, shortly after that, out like a light. Percy wondered how many times he’d had to fall asleep in the back of a car that he was able to do it so easily.

Dean was quiet for a long span after that, seemingly focusing on his driving. Percy was beginning to consider sleeping, his eyelids growing heavy, but he didn’t particularly feel like fucking up his sleep schedule. It was a tossup, now, between pulling an all-nighter or just giving in and accepting the fact that he was kind of fucked.

He turned his head to look over at Sam, who was as sound asleep as he ever was at home. It was strange, really. He’d spent so much time scouting out places all over America where he could just go to school and be a normal adult, after all of his teenage-hood shit. He’d done his absolute best to distance himself from the mythological world. He’d started making mortal friends and started dating someone who—he’d thought—would be able to let him just be...human. 

And then Sam went and said, “yeah, by the way, monsters,” and Percy was knocked out of his hopeful little bubble.

The thing was, Percy didn’t know if he should reveal his hand. Was it better to keep pretending? Or should he just tell Sam not to worry? That this used to be his every day? Sam had been running from all of this, though. His conversation with Dean proved that much, at least. So… if he told Sam, there was a chance, however slight, that Sam would drop him.

Percy was very much in love with Sam, and he’d always hated keeping everything a secret from him. But he didn’t want to lose Sam to his particular brand of scary.

“You’re strangely okay with all of this.” Dean said, startling him out of his half-asleep musings.

“The monsters?” Percy said, trying to follow his non-sequitur.

“Well, that, but also Sammy. And hunting them.”

“I mean, we all had that middle-school phase where you want the supernatural to be real, right? So, it’s like… I don’t want to be cliche, but it’s a bit of a dream come true.”

Dean snorted. “Sure, if your dream is dismemberment and evading the law.”

“You don’t look particularly dismembered.” Percy told him.

“I’m young.” Dean said, rather fatalistically. “There’s still time.”

“That’s healthy.” Percy said sarcastically. “Tell me, though. Sam left… if it’s all bad, why don’t you?”

Dean craned his head to look at Percy, and even though it was extremely early morning and there was nobody on the road, his anxiety skyrocketed past the 600th floor of the Empire State. 

“Look at the road!” He choked out.

Dean rolled his eyes, but turned around. “It’s like I said earlier. It’s better I do it than nobody at all.”

“What, like a rogue agent? Surely there’s a union or something.” Percy said. “I really can’t imagine this being left up to random people.”

“Better believe it.”

“How do you get initiated?” Percy asked.

Dean seemed suddenly awkward. All his easy confidence from earlier seemed to vanish. “Well, Sammy and me… we were born into it. Not much of a choice. That’s not usually the case, though. Sometimes people learn about monsters after being attacked or seeing a hunter, and from there, it’s a bit of a snowball.”

“Oh.” Percy said.

“Listen, man. It’s kind of weird talking to you when you’re basically behind me. If you can manage it, there’s space up here.”

It was a strange request, but whatever. Percy assumed that chasing homicidal creatures your whole life gave you your fair share of paranoia. At least he’d had the school years (mostly) off.

He brought his legs up and hooked them over the backrest of the bench, and used that to slide up and over into the passenger side.

Dean side-eyed him. “Gymnastics?”

Percy snorted and shook his head. “Nope. Intensive summer camp, remember?”

“Well, damn. I shoulda gone, then, if these are the results.”

Maybe he was trying to go for manly, but Percy smelled the repressed homosexuality. He said nothing about it, though, instead mentioning, “Doubt you would have gotten in. They had some special requirements you’d have to meet.”

Dean didn’t look concerned. “Well, I never stayed in one place for long, anyways.”

“Yeah?” Percy asked. He wondered what Dean’s life had been like, and for that matter, Sam’s. It didn’t seem like they relegated themselves to any one part of the country—Sam talked like he’d been everywhere. “What’s it like?”

“Awful.” Dean said. “Kinda cool, yeah, but awful.”

“Hm.” Percy said, not trying to be dismissive. He remembered his time on the Argo II, and the epic journey (literally. Annabeth had told him all about her favorite types of literature, once, a long time ago, and it had included what was almost an essay on what counted as the different types of adventure) he’d taken across the mediterranean. It was cool thinking back on it, but he couldn’t imagine it as a lifestyle.

“There were some fun moments, though.” Dean said. Percy didn’t know if he was trying to keep Percy hooked, or convince him to join the hunter world, or just talk because he was excited to have company, but it wasn’t like Percy didn’t want to listen.

“Tell me about it.” He said instead.

  
  


By the time Sam started blinking his eyes awake, the sun was high in the sky, and Percy and Dean had ended up talking for a few hours, before Percy had dozed for a bit.

He’d done his best to steer any conversation away from his Camp Half-Blood-ness, and it seemed to have work. He was still out on a limb about revealing anything, and so had shared some heavily edited stories. He hadn’t changed anything about Grover running for the enchilada line. That had never ceased to amuse him.

Dean had seemed to warm up to Percy over the course of the night. He’d been charismatic and friendly at first, but the undercurrent of suspicion had all but faded. It appeared he’d successfully been integrated into the fold.

Sam took one look at the two of them, and groaned. “No.”

“Morning, Sam!” They both said at once. Dean eyed him while Percy just grinned cheekily.

“If there’s a god, please let him stop this. I don’t think I could handle you guys teaming up.” Sam said, looking like the thought physically pained him.

“Would you rather us at each other’s throats?” Percy asked innocently. When Sam made a face, he said, “I didn’t think so.”

Sam was silent for a moment, before asking. “Where are we?”

“Couple miles out.” Dean said. “We already stopped for gas and all that, so it’s basically a straight shot.”

Percy held up a large bag of peanut m&ms. “And guess what I found.”

Dean took one look at the bag and freaked out. “Dude, get off. Those are mine!”

Just to be an ass, Percy showed him a handful of the blue ones picked out, and shoved them in his mouth. He then climbed his way into the back seat with the bag, where Dean couldn’t reach him.

He shared a conspiratorial look with Sam and offered him some. 

Sam rolled his eyes, but still took a few.

“Dammit, Sam, is nothing sacred anymore?” Dean complained.

“Nope.” Sam said, enjoying the moment. Percy high-fived him.

Dean slowed the car down after a moment, and peering out the window, Percy saw that they were nearing a bridge, blocked off by police officers and their cars. 

“What’s this?” He asked.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that whatever it was struck again.” Dean said. He opened the glove box and pulled out a cardboard bin filled with what looked like IDs.

“You’re definitely not CDC.” Percy said, reading them. “Or… FBI?”

Sam shook his head. “They’re fakes. And because Dean has no sense of subtlety, they say things like-”

“F. Roy Dean Schlippe?” Percy read. “That’s just awful.”

“It has my name in it!” Dean said. “So I have an excuse if somebody without my alias calls me.”

Sam looked doubtful, and Percy had to agree with him on the sentiment.

Dean scoffed. “You two stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He exited the car without any further comment, leaving Sam and Percy to themselves.

“You’re taking this all pretty well.” Sam said.

“Dean said the same thing.” Percy laughed. “I told him that it’s because I used to be obsessed with mythology, and he lectured me about dismemberment.”

Sam tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Dean can be that way sometimes. He gets uppity about the sheeple.”

“It’s okay, Sam. I’m not regretting coming along.” Percy assured him, responding to the unsaid words in his statement.

Sam peered at him with wide eyes. ”Yeah, but-”

“Trust me. I’d already be out of my mind if I hadn’t come. Knowing what I do now? It’s still the right choice for me.” Percy said.

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry I kept it from you. I just wanted to pretend I was-”

“Normal?” Percy said. “I get that. I really do. But like it or not, something will always come to bite you in the ass.”

He paused, and grinned. “Other than me, that is.” He waggled his eyebrows for effect.

Sam stuttered a moment. It never failed to amuse Percy that innuendos would always trip his boyfriend up, even after all this time together.

“Anyways...” Sam tried to segue. 

“Anyways.” Percy agreed.

Sam looked lost for words. Luckily, before he had to say anything, Dean rapped on the window, before climbing back into the car.

“You better not have been up to anything.” He grumbled. “But yeah, the police were a bust. They had nothing useful. Confirmed my theory, though—this is another attack.”

“Now what?” Percy asked.

“The boring part.” Sam sighed. “Dean’s going to schmooze with the locals.”

“Don’t be like that, Sam! It’s research.” He said. “And we can get lunch while we’re at it.”

“Shit, already?” Sam asked, flipping open his phone to check the time. “Oh, wow.”

Dean started driving down the road while Sam was lost in Incredulity Mode. Percy didn’t know how he knew where he was going. He must have had some sort of a preternatural sense of direction.

“Well… I’ll leave that to you, Dean.” Percy said. “I think, Sam, that you still owe me a library date.”

Sam looked relieved at the idea of not having to socialize in proximity to Dean, who was currently making a face at them.

“Sure.” He said. “There’s probably something in the newspapers that’ll help, anyways. If nothing else, it’ll cut down time.”

“We can get lunch on the way.” Percy said. “Dean, use your directional voodoo or whatever it is and drop us off at the library?”

Sam stifled a snort. 

“I’m not a damn chauffeur.” Dean complained. Nevertheless, he managed to find the library in less than ten minutes, and dropped them off there before heading who knew where else.

Percy offered Sam his arm. “So, Sam. A monster, you say.”

Sam looked at him solemnly. “Percy, are you-”

“If you ask me if I’m sure, so help me Sam.” Percy said.

Sam held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, Percy. Fine. Let’s go find a monster.”

Percy grinned at him. “That’s the spirit!”  
Sam took his arm with a look of long standing suffering that Percy was used to. Sam pretended not to like his antics, but in the end, he always went along with them, which Percy was beyond thrilled with.

And ultimately, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t even a little bit interested in watching Sam in action. Sue him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the three-chapter prologue. Not-so-coincidentally, end of the Pilot episode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks I wrote this chapter while playing Mr. Saxobeat on loop. Also, sorry if the pacing is weird, but I really wanted this to be the last of the “prologue” chapters or whatever. That’s also the reason that this chapter is so dummy thicc. But Merry Chrismast, Happy Chchhhanka (yeah I’m late don’t @ me), Enjoyable Solksticks (again late but whatever), joy for you non-demoninational folk, and may all the girls, gays, and theys join me in Hell for an absolute banging party this Yew Near. :P

“This is… way more boring than I thought it would be.” Percy said, leaning his chair back on only two feet. He had a stack of papers in his lap. Sam had dumped them there unceremoniously after sussing out which dates had the incidents they were looking for.

“Consider this a learning experience.” Sam said. “You wanted to know what it’s like, right?”

“Yeah, but I thought there’d be more action and less dust.” Percy said. He lifted a paper marked 1992 and shook it a little. The answering crinkle was only a little concerning. “They did  _ not _ preserve these well.”

“Well,” Sam said. “Think about it like this. When we read the reports of what happened, we’re essentially taking a mold of the footprints. To figure out its motives, how to stop it, and… whether it dies easily or not.”

“I always wanted to be a forensic investigator.” Percy answered sarcastically. “What next, stakeouts?”

“It’s happened before.” Sam said, running a hand through his hair. “God, I must be crazy bringing you along.”

“Oh, that ship’s been sailed. No takesies-backsies.”

“I’m gonna ignore that you actually said that.”

Percy made a dramatic gesture, overbalanced, and fell backwards onto the ground with an embarrassingly loud crash. He winced, hoping that the other patrons (or gods forbid, the  _ librarian _ ) wouldn’t come to chew him out.

Sam snorted. “You’re so fucking clumsy.”

“Don’t even.” Percy said. “Of the two of us, who actually knows how to cook?”

Sam opened his mouth, but Percy cut him off. “And don’t say you. You only know how to make box macaroni and cheese. That doesn’t count.”

“You turn everything blue!” Sam protested.

“Only bread-based products.” Percy complained. “And it tastes fine, so shut up.”

“I’m sick of pooping green.”

“You never say anything about it.”

“I’m saying it now.”

Percy climbed up from the floor, picking the chair up and dropping himself back in it. “Any other long-repressed secrets I should know about?” He asked.

“I hunt monsters.” Sam deadpanned.

“Actually, that raises a point.” Percy said. “What kind? Like… vampires? Werewolves? Is it solely european, or multicultural? What are the benchmarks for being a monster? Do you hunt, like, cannibals? Jame Gumb?”

Sam looked at him like he’d grown a second head. “Vampires aren’t real.” He said slowly. “But… it’s generally multicultural. There was a shtriga, once.”

“Vampires aren’t real?” Percy pouted. “That…  _ sucks _ .”

Sam rolled his eyes. “That was weak.” He said. “And we usually leave the serial killers to the cops.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that the average serial killer is weaker than the average monster.” Percy said. “So, like… why not do a public service?”

“Because then the amount of serial killers would remain the same.” Sam said.

“Not if you killed multiple.” Percy held up one of the scattered papers. “Also, I think I might’ve found something useful?”

“Why didn’t you bring this up earlier?”

“ADHD.” Percy said, shooting finger guns at Sam. “Perks of being a- me.”

“Yeah. Perks.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Well, what do you have?”

“You said that ghosts are results of violent deaths, right? So, like...does suicide count?”

A light dawned in Sam’s eyes. “Yes.”

“And it’s the same length of road… Hey, as a general ratio, how often are legends accurate?”

Sam had to think for a moment. “Eighty percent? It’s often enough that we can get most jobs done first try.”

“Okay, so. Correct me if I get anything wrong, but here’s my thoughts.” Percy said, spreading out the newspapers. “We have a five-mile stretch of road, twenty years, and a voice message that says ‘I can never go home.’”

Sam nodded.

“So...Looking at the papers, all that was left of the disappeared men were their cars. Would this be a vanishing hitchhiker? Only, instead of asking for a lift to the graveyard, she wants a ride to her house.”

“That’s actually… a good idea. That’s probably exactly what’s happening. But why wouldn’t she go home? Why kill the men?”

“Elementary, dear Watson!” Percy said, holding up a lecturing finger. “I was looking at the local papers for major deaths á la ghost from twenty years ago, right? Behold.” He pushed a paper marked April 25, 1981 towards Sam. “Constance Welch. She committed suicide...after finding her children dead in the bathtub. I’d say that’s both a violent death and a pretty good reason to not want to go home.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “But what does this have to do with killing these men?”

Percy faltered a little. “I’m still working on that.”

“Well, at the very least, we’ve got a start.” Sam said. “We should call Dean, tell him what we know. Maybe he’ll have found something useful.”

Percy tried not to agree too enthusiastically. “Yeah, we should pool our resources.”

Sam sighed. “Are you really that desperate to get out of here?”

“No...”

Sam pushed his chair back and stood up, stretching slightly. “Help me put these papers away, and we can get out of here.”

Percy did  _ not _ punch the air. He didn’t. And if he did, Sam definitely did not see it.

Being careful not to crunch up the papers (he was not obsessive-compulsive, but crunched paper just drove him up the wall), he gathered them up and almost dumped them in the bin randomly. Rolling his eyes with the air of someone herding a toddler, Sam took them out of Percy’s arms and actually  _ organized _ them properly.

“Also… where’s the lunch I was promised? It’s nearly two and we haven’t eaten.” Percy said. “I could really go for pizza. The good kind, not the skimping-on-cheese kind. You know that Domino’s only gives you enough cheese if you order super extra? Dissatisfying.”

“Yeah, let’s get you out of here.”

“I feel like I’m forgetting something.” Percy said. “I know that it’s a bit of a non-sequitur, but I really think there’s something I’ve slipped out of mind.”

Percy absolutely hated the feeling. It happened a lot, what with his ADHD. He was always forgetting something, and by the time he remembered it hours later, it turned out to be a stupid unimportant fleeting thought about the weather. He’d like to be able to say he’d learned to ignore the feeling, but one too many times it had turned out to be something  _ actually _ important that he couldn’t just dismiss it out of hands.

Ultimately, he relied on Sam to keep his head on straight for him (somewhat straight...) and tell him that his phone was actually right where he’d left it two minutes ago. 

This time, though, he had the sense that he’d actually forgotten something he needed.

“Idea, object, or task?” Sam asked, the usual question they’d worked out to see if they could pull it back to the forefront.

Percy ran a mental inventory. He had all of his usual things on him, like his phone and Riptide (which he was eternally thankful he couldn’t lose. He’d have been up shit creek a thousand times over if he could), spare change.... “I have all my stuff.” He said. “I think...Idea.”

“Okay.” Sam said. “Related to the case?”

“No.” Percy sighed in defeat. “It’ll come back to me later, you know how it is.”

“Yeah, I do.” Sam urged him out the door. “Let me call Dean. We can meet and get food.”

Percy raised a hand to cover his eyes, squinting at the bright sunlight of the early afternoon. “Knock yourself out.”

Sam pulled out his phone and dialed, and it only took a couple rings before Dean picked up. Leaning closer to Percy, Sam put the phone on speaker so they could both hear it more clearly.

“Go for Dean.” Dean said.

“This isn’t a walkie.” Sam said. “Anyways, what are you up to?”

“You’re not gonna be thrilled.” Dean said. “But I found Dad’s motel room. He cleared out of here a few days ago, I think.”

“What?” Sam said, eyebrows raising in incredulity. “He left?”

“Well, the rotting burger seems to think so, at least.”

“He left stuff behind?”

“Yeah.” Dean said. There was a rustling of paper in the background, and the sound of a drawer being opened and closed. “He’s left the whole case up on the wall. And he seems to think it was a Woman in White.”

“What’s that?” Percy asked. “We’d been looking at the papers… I’d thought it was a vanishing hitchhiker… like, you know,  _ Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark _ or whatever.”

“That’s a good theory, but based on the evidence-”

“A Woman in White—actually, a White Lady—is a similar sort of legend.” Sam cut Dean off. “Only, it’s usually about women who find out that their husband was unfaithful or betrayed them somehow. They suffer a bout of insanity, and kill their kids...and commit suicide.”

The puzzle pieces fit into place for Percy. “Constance Welch...”

“You found her already? You guys move fast.” Dean commented.

“Well, without you to distract us...” Sam bickered.

“Can it.” Dean said. “Anyways, Dad had that name pinned up on the board. I bet you he interviewed the husband to find where she was buried.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Percy whispered to Sam.

“Burning the remains gets rid of a ghost.” Sam whispered back.

“-think he’d be willing to open up a second time.” Dean finished. “So we’re going to have to get creative.”

“I mean… is that the only way to get rid of the ghost? Can’t you do an exorcism or something?” Percy asked. “Maybe you don’t need the grave.”

“Exorcisms really only work with possessions.” Sam said. “It’s possible that if we took her home… made her face whatever she was avoiding...”

“Dei ex machina.” Percy said. 

Dean scoffed. “Deus.”

“Cactus. Cacti.” Percy said. “Learn your plurals.” He hesitated. He didn’t really want to explain why he had said gods, as opposed to god. The Latin was as easy for him as it ever was, and apparently he’d picked up Annabeth’s habit of correcting people on that front.

He remembered how she’d once tried to pick apart the reasoning for why it was instinctual for demigods, and how they all shared the ADHD/Dyslexia traits. She theorized it had been genetic. 

Percy told her the gods clearly couldn’t have genes, based on the sheer amount of incest alone. She’d been a little sour about that for a couple days, but Percy just thought she was thrown off by the fact that he’d made a good point for once.

“When did you pick up Latin?” Sam asked. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“I had a kickass teacher in sixth grade. He was really into all of that stuff–he’d even host tournaments–sword vs. chalk. Guess who had the chalk.” He grumbled.

“All that aside,” Dean said. “To get her to target us, we’d need somebody to be unfaithful.”

Sam and Percy looked at each other.

“Dean?” Sam asked, cautiously.

“Can’t be me. I can’t be unfaithful if I’m not shacked up with somebody.”

“Well, maybe we can-”

“We’re not going to bring civilians into this.” Sam said, before Percy could finish his thought.

Dean hummed in agreement, before making a strangled noise. “I am  _ not _ getting it on with your boyfriend, Sam!”

Percy made a face. “Yeah, no.”

Sam looked lost for words. “Well, I for one am not exactly up for getting with a stranger.”

“Ditto.” Percy echoed. “And you guys should probably not ride the incest train...”

“C’mon, this is unnecessary.” Dean complained. “This is… this is unreasonable.”

“Okay, for one,” Percy said. “I’m not  _ that _ bad. In fact, Sam tells me-”

“Don’t finish that.” Dean snapped.

“Okay. And two, I’m pretty sure unfaithful counts as a kiss. If you’re thinking about fucking me… you’re fuck outta luck.”

Sam made a face, and Percy could tell he was trying very hard not to think about his brother and boyfriend hooking up.

To be fair, Percy wasn’t exactly fond of the idea either. Sure, Dean was hot (not that he’d ever say that to Sam), but closet cases weren’t exactly his type, and he didn’t want to listen to whining the whole time. Unfortunately, the alternatives were… less than ideal. More so than this.

On the other end, Dean was spluttering like he was drowning at a pool. “No. No no no no. This is  _ not  _ happening.”

“Right. Cool.” Percy said. “Do we have like, ghost catnip or anything?” He wasn’t even being sarcastic.

Sam frowned, rubbing his face tiredly. “No. I don’t like this, but it’s really our best shot.”

“I-” Dean started.

Percy was done. “Listen, Dean, we’re all not thrilled. Now shut up and take it like a man.”

Sam barked out a laugh. “Yeah, Dean. Wouldn’t want to be…  _ sissy. _ ”

“I hate all of you.” Dean groused.

“I’m wounded.” Percy responded drily. 

“We’re still at the library.” Sam said. “Come get us?”

He snapped his phone shut before Dean could respond, and looked at Percy. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but closed it again. Percy could see the gears turning in his head.

Percy touched his arm. “For the record, Sam, Dean isn’t so much my type.”

Sam smiled wryly, peering at him through his bangs. “Yeah. For the record, I don’t hold this against you.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” He said. He stretched up on his toes to kiss Sam. “Don’t know what I’d do otherwise.”

Sam’s smile was a lot warmer.

* * *

Dean honked the horn at them when he pulled up, looking rather put out. 

Percy practically strutted up to the car, his arm hooked in Sam’s. He pulled the door open, and gestured dramatically for Sam to enter.

“A true gentleman.” Sam commented, looking like he was trying not to laugh.

Percy piled in after Sam and pulled the door shut.

“Okay.” He said. “I’ve been promised lunch like, five times already. So far, these promises have remained unfulfilled.”

“Are you always this dramatic?” Dean complained, pulling away. “I can see why the two of you get along so well.”

Percy couldn’t tell if that was intended to be an insult. Dean’s mood was hard to decipher.

Still, they were finally getting food. Percy had been starved before, and while this was nowhere near that level, it definitely gave him a new appreciation for the finer things in life. Namely cheeseburgers.

The restaurant that they ended up at definitely had cheeseburgers, and Percy was practically inhaling them, to Sam’s distaste. Across the booth, Dean was doing much the same, though he was pausing to talk in between bites.

He had tossed a battered old journal on the table that looked more like a collage than anything—extra pages looked glued in multiple times. Paperclips and cards jutted out of some pages. The whole thing generally looked like a mess.

“I thought you said he left.” Sam said, looking at it with an odd expression.

“He did.” Dean said.

“He never goes anywhere without it, he wouldn’t have just left it behind.”

“Well apparently, he did.” Dean tapped the journal meaningfully. “And what’s more, he left coordinates for me on one of the pages.”

“So he just...left all this behind? On the off chance you’d come looking for him?” Sam said, stealing a fry off Percy’s place almost automatically.

“I think that might be where he went.” Dean said.

“Screw that!” Sam said. “He wouldn’t just leave town without finishing the case. He clearly knew how he needed to do that! If anything, it looks like he gave up.”

“Or handed the case off to us.” Dean said.

“Handed it off to you.” Sam corrected. “Percy and I are supposed to be home right now. And that’s where we’re going, once Constance is taken care of.”

Percy looked between them, not sure what he should say in this situation. He opted for remaining silent and finishing his burger. He resolved to cut in if they started to argue with each other too badly.

Dean sighed. “I have to find Dad.”

“You can do that on your own.” Sam reminded him. “You don’t need me here. And definitely not Percy.”

Percy did not like being talked about. “I’m right here, Sam! Besides, I know how to use a sword. I’m golden. Well, bronze, but the point remains.”

“Okay, fine.” Sam said. “But you don’t have experience with any of this! A sword kills much less than you think it does.”

In his experience, no, it killed just about everything, but this was a different world. This was Sam’s world, and so far, just this ghost alone was shaping up to be very different. He’d have to defer to Sam a _ lot _ if he wanted to keep up with the brothers.

“Just finish the case with me, Sam. We can talk about this later.” Dean finished his burger in short order. “If you really want to go back, I won’t stop you.”

Sam’s shoulders slumped, releasing some of the tension. “Sure.”

Percy leaned into Sam. “What’s the plan, though? Are we still… Constance-baiting? Or are we going to find the bones?”

“Like I said, I don’t think we’ll be able to get a word out of her husband.” Dean said, gesturing blandly.

“Careful, Dean.” Percy joked. “Or I might mistake your tone as enthusiasm.”

The glare Dean gave him was kind of weak, all things considered.

When the waitress walked by, though, it was if a switch had been flipped. He immediately turned his most charming smile on the poor woman, who seemed a little flustered at the attention. 

“How are you guys finding your meals?” She stammered out.

“We’ll take the check, please.” Sam said tersely. 

Percy drummed his fingers against the table. He wasn’t good with situations like these, and he didn’t really feel like being caught up in all this conflict, but unfortunately, he was the center of it. He already knew how it was going to turn out; the inevitable destination they were heading to was him and… Dean.

He had, almost unconsciously, been formulating a plan in his head from the moment they had stepped into the restaurant. Constance had never attacked anyone with other people in the car. She had only ever gone for lone drivers–perhaps to make it easier to get them to pick her up.

At any rate, this meant that Percy was going to have to go alone.

He was going to have a bitch of a time convincing Sam, who (thankfully) firmly believed Percy was incapable of dealing with anything of the supernatural world. But theoretically, he’d give Dean a quick kiss or something (out of Sam’s sight), repress the memory forever, get Constance in the car and somehow lead her out to the house, where she’d face whatever (metaphorical)(hopefully) demons were haunting her, ha-ha, and poof into the underworld.

Alternatively, Constance would attack him and he’d have to deal with that somehow.

Alternatively, Constance wouldn’t go for him and he’d be back to square one.

Alternatively….

There were too many possibilities. Too many ways for the whole scheme to go wrong. Frankly, this was pretty stressful. At least in his world, the monsters came for  _ you _ . It’d save you the trouble of making contingencies upon contingencies.

“I’m gonna get some air.” Percy said, once the waitress had walked away and Dean was sufficiently diverted. “Meet me outside when you’re done.”

He stood up, ignoring Sam’s murmurs, and walked out, feeling something in him ease once he wasn’t in the cramped building anymore.

The front of the restaurant opened onto a somewhat busy street, which left him awkwardly standing out on the sidewalk, trying to avoid other pedestrians. Making a decision, he turned and walked down the sidewalk, meandering around and absorbing his surroundings.

There really wasn’t much in the area. It wasn’t populated the way Palo Alto was, and he sort of missed it. 

When it came down to it, he missed Long Island, too. It’d been such a long time since he’d met up with his friends.

It was kind of anticlimactic, when it came down to it. They’d defeated Gaia, he’d come out of Tartarus all the stronger for it, and he’d watched his friends die… and then, life.

Don’t get him wrong, he was grateful, every day, that the world was not about to end, and that wouldn’t have to worry about any of that other shit. But… sometimes, life was boring. Hell, he’d shoot another cannon at a(n empty) school bus if it’d mean something interesting. Intentionally, this time.

This trip with Sam… thus far, it’d been kind of boring, long hours in the car and dusty old newspapers, but it held promise. It’d be a nice revisit to his old life.

He kind of wanted to come clean to Sam, too. If he could just tell Sam that he was used to this, if he could just mention that ‘Hey, I’m not untrained, I’m actually one of the most powerful people of our generation so  _ please _ stop worrying about me so much,” then maybe it’d work.

Sam might get irritated with him for holding out so long after Sam “confessed” to him, though.

Percy turned a corner, and kept walking slowly. Maybe, if he broke it gently… kinda eased Sam into it? Obviously, Sam had experience with the supernatural, if the ghosts were any indication (though Percy was a bit bummed that vampires weren’t real), but demigods was a whole different ballpark.

Did that mean Sam would consider him a monster? Percy felt a little sick at the thought. He knew that Sam wouldn’t kill him, but the deep betrayal Sam would feel… It might ruin everything between them. He really didn’t want to risk it.

He also didn’t want to keep this from Sam, now that he knew about Sam’s history.

His phone rang, snapping him out of his reverie, and he answered it after an awkward fumble.

“Ahoy.” Percy said.

Sam huffed a laugh. “We’re out of the restaurant. Where’d you go?”

Percy took a moment to look at his surroundings. “I just turned the corner. I’m not that far off, I’ll be right there.”

Turning around, he flipped the phone shut and started walking back the way he’d come. He’d actually walked farther than he’d thought, even though he’d been walking fairly slowly.

Sam and Dean came into view within moments, though, and he waved to get their attention.

“Do we have a plan for Connie?” He asked?

Dean looked momentarily confused, before he realized what Percy meant.

Sam shrugged. “I think Constance might’ve been buried behind her old house. Dean and I were brainstorming, and ultimately, I think we should just burn the bones. It’d be easiest.”

“So, a historical field trip. Yay.” Percy said. “Do ghosts only come out at night, or can we go now?

“It might actually be better to go now.” Dean said thoughtfully. “Ghosts are more active at night, so we can catch her by surprise.”

Percy clapped his hands. “Awesome.”

* * *

They had just entered “the ghost zone,” the five-mile stretch of road, when Percy caught a flicker out of the corner of his eye.

“Guys, is that normal?” He asked. “I thought I saw something.”

Next to Percy, Sam shrugged. “If she’d shown up, it wouldn’t be a flicker.”

Percy nodded, and turned his head to look back out the window at the trees passing by.

The flicker showed itself again, lasting a split second longer than it had before, and the image of it burned itself into Percy’s eyes. It wasn’t the woman in white, couldn’t have been Constance. It looked like a bulky man in one of those creepy-ass trench coats, grinning directly at Percy.

He had his finger held up to his lips in a shushing motion, though he looked insufferably smug. And as he flickered out of existence, his eyes–a vile shade of yellow–seemed to disappear slower than the rest of him.

Percy blinked.

* * *

There were no other sightings, not until they pulled into the driveway of the house.

It was obvious that there had been nobody living in it for ages. The windows were cracked and caked with kicked-up dust, the door was in shambles, and the whole house just reeked of “decrepit.”

As soon as Dean put the car into park, Constance appeared, as if she knew what they were planning.

“I can never go home.” She told them sadly, and flickered out, reappearing a few feet away. Her head hung at an odd angle, like the girl from The Ring, and overall had an ominous vibe. She didn’t do anything, though. She just stood there watching them, occasionally glitching like an old tv.

Percy got out of the car warily, Sam and Dean following his example. Constance just watched them, waiting for a move.

“Now what?” Percy whispered, unwilling to break the eerie silence.

Dean nodded his head at the back of the house. “You two distract her. I’m gonna go dig up her grave.”

He peeled off, and started moving at a light jog. Percy thought that his motion might attract Constance’s attention, but she remained focused on him and Sam, ignoring Dean completely.

“Why can’t you go home?” Percy called to her, wondering how present she was. Would she even respond?

She flickered, again, facing the house in an altogether different, more terrified pose before flickering back to face them, as if she’d never moved. “I can  _ never _ go home!” She said, and there was an unearthly shriek coloring her tone.

She reappeared right in front of Percy, getting way up in his bubble, her hand on his chest. It seemed as if she was asking something of him.

He tried to take a step back, and her face contorted into something monstrous. She looked like a Fury, face drawn and teeth sharp. Her hand somehow morphed into claws, and she was digging them into his skin.

“Sam?” Percy called, really out of his depth. Sam had run to the back of the car and was rifling in its trunk, searching for something.

Seeing that no help was really coming from that direction, he tried to reason with Constantine. “Lady, I’m not unfaithful, okay? I don’t know what your vendetta is–although I kinda do–but I’m not your target! I’ve never cheated-”

“You will.” She intoned ominously, face getting nearer to his.

Before she could do anything, though, there was a shot, and she fizzled out, leaving Percy on his own. He looked to the direction that the noise had come from, and saw Sam holding a shotgun.

“You okay?” He asked, walking up to Percy.

“Yeah, uh...That was kind of terrifying.” Percy said. “I was useless.”

Sam shook his head wryly. “First ghost.” He said. “It gets everyone. If I have anything to say about it, it’ll be the last, too.”

“You’re so protective of me, Sam.” Percy fluttered his lashes. “A real knight in shining armor.”

“I left hunting for a reason. It’s not a healthy lifestyle. I don’t want you thrown into that.” Sam crossed his arms, looking mildly uncomfortable. “Anyways, let’s move. The salt won’t dispel her forever. It’s more of a temporary measure.”

Percy followed Sam as he strode towards the house, keeping his eyes peeled for Constance to show up. He hoped she hadn’t gotten interested in Dean.

His worries were for nothing, though, because the moment they stepped up on the porch, she appeared before them, face contorted with a combination of rage and fear. “No man is faithful!” She hissed, making a sharp gesture.

The door flew off its hinges towards them, and Sam readied his shotgun.

Before it had a chance to hit them, though, Percy turned to the side and braced himself, elbow out.

The door crashed into him and pushed him back a step, but also cracked into useless shards when he elbowed it. They flew past, carried by momentum, but they’d become essentially harmless. There was an advantage to ghosts having a fetish for old houses, after all. Rotted and weak wood was a plus.

At the same time, Same fired off a shot at Constance again, who shrieked and disappeared.

And, on the upside, now they wouldn’t have to force their way into the house.

Sam eyed Percy, who just shrugged and said, “Physics. Though I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have a hell of a bruise.”

Sam snorted. “If it’ll stop you from putting your elbows on the table like you own it, then I won’t complain.”

“It’ll stop me from getting you off if you keep going like that.” Percy retorted. “Anyways, let’s go find dirt on Constance. What’s in the house, yeah?”

He pushed forwards into the house, ignoring Sam’s startled face. He was never going to tell Sam, but when he raised his eyebrows like that, his hairline went back too. It was kind of cute, in a dorky way.

The interior of the house was dark, and dusty as all get-out. Percy tried valiantly to hold back a sneeze, and nearly succeeded, until he made the mistake of opening his mouth.

When he sneezed, a cloud of dust flew up and drifted through the air, the light streaming through the streaky windows catching on the motes.

The front room that they found themselves in was just as decrepit as the outside of the house would suggest. Percy made noticeable footprints in the dust as he walked in, and Sam tripped over a fallen book in the dim light.

“So...” Percy trailed off. “You’re the expert, Sam. What do we do next?”

“Probably try to figure out what had her scared.” Sam said, voice low like the dim light called for silence as well.

“We really want to look for whatever scared a ghost?” Percy asked. “What scares the intangible?”

There was suddenly the sound of rushing water, like something pouring down a series of rocks… or stairs, as it turned out. It seemed like a steady stream had built at the top of the stairwell and was flowing down.

The eerie part was that Percy couldn’t sense it. It was as if he had suddenly gone blind, or deaf. It was as if the water didn’t even exist.

The water began pooling on the hardwood floor at their feet, and looking up, Percy saw the dark figures of two small, soaked children, watching them from the shadows.

They flickered, just like Constance had, and then they were two steps down.

“Mommy!” They sang out. “You’ve come home to us, Mommy.”

Constance appeared in the middle of the room, and she looked absolutely terrified. She was speaking, but there was no noise, and she tried to leave. Without moving, the children disappeared and reappeared around her, hugging her too tightly for her to escape.

They flickered, all in sync, and faded out, melting into a horror-movie that burned out from the inside, leaving nothing behind but a fading echo of a scream. The floors were dry again.

“I guess that’s what ghosts are scared of.” Percy said, somewhat irreverently. Maybe it wasn’t the appropriate moment, but it didn’t matter. “Does this mean she’s taken care of?”

“Her and her kids.” Sam said. “I’m willing to bet nobody knew about them. They never bothered anyone because nobody made it to the house.”

“...Should we tell Dean?” Percy asked. “He can quit the gravedigging while he’s ahead.”

Sam nodded, heading back for the front door. “I’m not going through the house, though. I’m dirty enough, and Dean would kill us if we messed up the Impala.”

“He’s the one digging an actual grave!” Percy complained. “But yeah, whatever.”

They found Dean in short order. He had a shovel with him and a small pile of dirt, but he hadn’t gotten really far in the five or so minutes that’d passed. He was thrilled that he wouldn’t have to dig anything up, and left the site happily.

“So she  _ was  _ a White Lady.”

“Like you have room to talk. You were  _ so _ sure of yourself earlier.” Percy said, leaning against the car.

“Confidence is key, Percy. Everything else comes after.”

Sam snorted. “Makes sense.” He opened up a car door and slid in. “Take me and Percy home, Dean.”

Dean’s face fell. If anything, he seemed to have counted on Sam to change his mind over the course of their hunt, like Sam just needed a hint to spark his memory.

Needless to say, the ride back was a somewhat tense and silent one.

* * *

Percy keyed himself into the apartment, shutting the door softly behind him. Sam had stayed in the car with Dean, presumably to set his expectations straight. He’d told Percy to go on ahead, and get himself unpacked.

Percy just hoped the argument wouldn’t get too heated.

He made his way to the bedroom and dumped his bag heavily on the bed, before sitting next to it and slumping over. He froze, though, after a moment. He could almost hear it, if he stilled his breathing enough... Someone was in the room with him.

_ What, again? _

His hand snuck stealthily to his pocket, but before he could reach anything, the lights flicked on of their own accord.

The man they illuminated had his hands in his ugly trench coat pockets, head tilted jovially, though he held that same smug smile. The things that really connected dots, though, were his putrid yellow eyes, the exact color of sulfur.

“I owed you a visit.” He said conversationally. “Turns out you left for the weekend, though. You kinda left me hanging.”

He shrugged, as though everything was fine and he wasn’t invading in a terrifying way.

“Yeah, my bad.” Percy said. “Though I usually don’t wait around for monsters to get me.”

“Is that what you think I am?” The man laughed. “I suppose you are, in a sense, correct. But only morally.”

“Genetic freak of nature, huh? Well, tough luck, I don’t really abide serial killers either.”

The man rolled his eyes—though it was hard for Percy to tell, because the eyes were a solid yellow, like his flesh had been replaced with stone. The most indication he got was a subtle roll of the head and flickering eyelids.

“Percy, listen. The open hostility you’re showing me really wounds me, you know?”

“My bad.” Percy said, fitting as much sarcasm as he could into the sentence.

“Well, I can clearly tell I’m not wanted here, so I’ll make it short.” The man said, pulling his hands out of his pockets and shrugging, like “what can you do about it?” “I need to kill you. It’s nothing personal, of course, just-”

“Business.” Percy intoned coldly.

“You get it!” He said. “Now, I personally would love a long, drawn-out fight to the death that ends with your evisceration and my dinner, but we don’t have the time for that. Sammy dear is going to be getting up to the room any minute, and I can’t be here when he does.”

The yellow-eyed man made a bored gesture, and Percy found the floor yanked out from underneath him, and then he was pinned to the ceiling like a butterfly.

The same pain, too. He’d been stabbed before, and it felt like a spear had gone straight through his stomach, taking a twisting route on the way to the inside of the wall. He watched as blood started staining his shirt, seeping out slowly like it was only a minor cut.

The man clucked in a dissatisfied fashion. “Well, I’d love to say this has been interesting, but you were just as weak as all the others. I’m disappointed, Jackson.”

Percy managed a weak glare, though the rising nausea made it somewhat difficult. His vision was getting blurred, too. 

He tried to move his limbs, even a twitch of his fingers, but he was completely paralyzed. The best he could do was squint and breathe shallowly.

“I’ll give your regards to Annabeth.” The man said, walking to the door of the room.

_ That _ caught Percy’s attention. He tried again to move, to break whatever power that the monster was using against him, but nothing worked.

“You’re squirming like a stuck caterpillar.” The man said. “Please don’t. I don’t want to have to snap your neck and ruin the fun.”

He sauntered out of the room, and soon it was as if he had never existed—if it wasn’t for Percy’s current state of bleeding out on the ceiling.

The pain was awful, but not nearly as bad as anything in Tartarus. This would be a 2.5 on that scale.

The scent of gasoline permeated the room, and Percy looked around frantically, to see what was happening, where it was getting poured. Was he setting a fire?

He didn’t see anything, though, and only really figured out where it was when the drywall under (above?) his fingertips started getting soggy and soft.

_ Shit. _

Percy spent a few moments on the ceiling breathing shallowly, clinging as tightly as he could to what remained of his consciousness, though it was getting harder and harder by the minute. Even his mind was getting hazy, and he kept almost drifting off.

He hated himself for falling prey to whatever that was so easily.

Another minute passed, and Sam finally walked in. Percy could have cried. He opened his mouth to call out to Sam, get his attention and see if he could do something, but no words came. The monster had stolen his ability to speak along with all of that, and Sam didn’t seem to notice the smell. There was nothing he could do. He had no way to get Sam’s attention.

Sam dropped on the bed where Percy had been sitting, looking curiously at the bag that hadn’t been unpacked. He made a motion towards it, grasping for it.

That was when the first drop fell, superceding the false gravity the monster had made.

A second one fell, and another, and Percy got a front row seat to Sam’s dawning horror, just as his vision began to fade out and his consciousness slip.

Another drip, and the ceiling around him caught.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyyyy guess who just doubled their wordcounttttt! And yeah i know the final ghost scene left like 2000% to be desired but whatever. It really wasn’t even the focus, anyways. Anyways, love all you babes, stay safe and don’t drown infants


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first of the sixty-six seals broke while Dean was in Hell. The second broke with the Rising of the Witnesses. 
> 
> And that wasn't even the biggest event of Sam's day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so i know that i’m kicking off the actual storyline storyline in the exact same place as I had before, but guys. I went over all the episodes from seasons two to six, and i could not find a better entry point than this. Anywhere else would have fucked with my plot too much, and this? This was *chef’s kiss* perfect. So i guess we’re rebooting it here. I don’t know how my baby brain from three and a half years ago came up with this kind of brilliance, but here we are. What a fucking legend. So, i’m pleased to introduce you guys to S04E02: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester. But we’re doing this shit my way. Buckle up, butterfucks.

_September 28, 2008_

"Apocalypse? The apocalypse, apocalypse? The four horsemen, pestilence, $5-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?" Dean asked. They were all inside Bobby’s heretofore unknown panic room, preparing themselves for the ghosts and trying to find a game plan against them.

Dean sounded incredulous, but the way he’d been questioning the existence of god, of angels and their reasoning for getting out of the pit, Sam could tell he believed Bobby. It all fit together a little too well.

“That’s the one.” Bobby confirmed. “The Rising of the Witnesses is a… a mile marker.”

“Okay, so what do we do now?” Sam said, folding his arms across his chest. It was a less than desirable situation, obviously. The Witnesses were arriving to jump-start the apocalypse. Not only that, but the brand left on them, the signs of the spell someone had done—it was proof that someone was doing it intentionally. Someone was _trying_ to pull the threads into place.

His mind flashed back to Azazel, and all the plans that he had been working on. A general for his army, the best of all the psychic children. But he wouldn’t have needed an army, unless he was prepared to go to war. And what better time than an apocalypse? The sheer magnitude of all these pieces, pulling together was immense, especially when considering the infidelity of demons to any one cause. 

Dean turned and walked away, making a show of giving up that Sam knew he wouldn’t actually follow through on. “Road trip. Grand Canyon, Star Trek experience. Bunny ranch.”

“First things first. How about we survive our friends out there?” Bubby suggested drily.

“Great. Any ideas aside from staying inside this room until Judgement Day?” Dean said.

“It’s a spell, to send the Witnesses back to rest. Should work.” Bobby showed them a page in the book.

“Should work.” Sam rolled his eyes inwardly. “Great.” The problem he was picking up on, here, was that the Witnesses were summoned with a spell powerful enough to leave a mark on their soul.

And they were going to use a spell to put them back? That didn’t seem that great, considering. What if they were just going to add more marks, irreparably?

“If I translated correctly, I think we’ve got everything we need here at the house.” Bobby said.

“Any chance you got everything we need in this room?” Dean asked.

Bobby made a face. “So you thought our luck was gonna start now all of a sudden? Spell’s gotta be cast over an open fire.”

“Fireplace in the library.” Sam said, exhaling incredulously. That was going to leave them hideously exposed to attacks from all sides, though, considering how open the room was, and the size of it.

“Bingo.” Bobby made his way over to the door of the panic room.

“That’s just not as appealing,” Dean said, “as a, uh, ghost-proof panic room.”

Nevertheless, he picked up several guns, loading them with the salt bullets they’d been making earlier. Sam also picked up a bad and stowed the extra materials in it, while Bobby traded the book to Dean in exchange for a gun.

“Cover each other.” He told them. “And aim careful. Don’t run out of ammo until I’m done, or they’ll shred you. Ready?”

Sam followed Bobby and Dean out of the panic room, immediately feeling the temperature drop around them as they re-entered the ghosts’ domain.

Before they even got up the stairs, though, they ran into a ghost.

“Hey Dean. Remember me?”

His face was flat, cold. Sam remembered his face, but for the life of him he couldn’t place it. It looked wrong, though. He was supposed to be full of life, not… this.

“Ronald, huh? With the laser eyes?” Dean made a weak gesture, but stopped when he realized he clearly wasn’t winning him over. “I wish I could say it was good to see you.”

“I’m dead because of you! You were supposed to help me!”

Dean faltered as the ghost hit the one spot he was most insecure about.

As the ghost lunged for Dean, Bobby shot it, full-frontal. “If you’re gonna shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” He growled.

They climbed the stairs and made their way cautiously towards the living room, where the fireplace was. 

Sam found the bag of salt and started laying down a line around the desk while Dean got the fire lit up in short order. So far, none of the other ghosts had reappeared, but it was possible they were going to try and lure them out individually for easier pickings.

Bobby gestured for the bag and Sam handed it over, while he received his marching orders. “Upstairs, linen closet. Red hex box. It’ll be heavy.”

“Got it,” Sam said, and made his way up the stairs, telling himself to ignore the appearance of two small girls back down the stairs. His brother and Bobby could handle it. He needed to get the stuff for it all to be over faster.

By the time he made it up the landing, he had heard two shots, but no screams, which meant that for the time being, everyone was okay. Everyone alive, at any rate.

He pulled open the door of the linen closet, silently impressed at how Bobby had stashed things around his house, where they were both out of the way and within reach. He had everything mentally catalogued, too, judging by the way he didn’t even hesitate when telling Sam what to get and where to get it.

The hex box was heavy, like Bobby had mentioned, but before he could remove it, he heard a voice behind him.

“You know what really pisses me off, Sam?” It was Meg, and she didn’t sound outright hostile, but the resentment was definitely there.

He spun around and fired off a shot at her, but she disappeared before it could connect. 

“You saw how I suffered for months. I thought you must have learned something. I thought I died for something.” She said, right up behind him.

“Meg-” He tried to ignore the rising guilt that was building up within him. This wasn’t Meg. She had been grabbed out of her afterlife with a spell. She was a Witness now. Her anger was amplified.

But even telling himself all that, he still didn’t really believe it. After all, she wasn’t lying about anything. She was telling the truth, plain and honest, and while Sam knew logically that there hadn’t been anything he could have done, he still wished he had, that he had had some way of knowing, some way of helping her.

“But what you’re doing,” She spoke, not letting him say anything. “With that demon, Ruby…”

She knew. How she knew, Sam could only guess at, but she was cutting straight through him, and she wasn’t even hesitating. “How many innocent bodies has she burned through for kicks? How many girls, just like me? And you don’t send her back to Hell?

“You’re a monster!” She stared at him defiantly, putting as much hurt and rage as she could into her expression.

He shot her in the face and grabbed the hex box, running it downstairs to Bobby.

“Dean’s in the kitchen.” He told Sam, speaking fast. “I think a Witness has him.”

Sam turned and went for the kitchen doors, which had been slammed shut with a supernatural force. Thinking fast, he went to the other entrance for the kitchen. He could hear someone speaking, a low, angry voice.

Henriksen.

“You get saved from Hell; I die. Why do you deserve another chance, Dean?”

Sam shot the ghost, and Dean collapsed, having been held up by the ghost reaching into his ribcage.

“You alright?” He asked, feeling stupid even as he said it.

“No.” Dean said, in a tone that implied Sam was an idiot.

Well, he couldn’t fault him there.

They slid open the kitchen doors and brought the ingredients back to Bobby, who was messing around with the ingredients he already had.

Ronald appeared, right outside the salt circle. He looked furious.

The room went black for a fraction of a second, before lightning cracked, just outside the house. The thunder that followed was nearly instantaneous, and deafening, louder than almost anything Sam had ever heard.

The darkness flared up again, and everything went absolutely silent, as if the blackness was pressing down on them, suppressing all their senses and leaving them lost and blinded.

When the light returned to the room, all of the Witnesses were standing just outside the salt circle. The twin girls, Meg, Henricksen, and Ronald. They had their backs to the hunters, though, and were staring silently at an empty spot in the corner.

The shadows there lengthened, and a young twenty-something stepped out, looking for all the world like he belonged there. His eyes were dark and heavy, bags under them like he hadn’t slept in a week. His skin was deathly pale, and his hair hung almost over his eyes.

He would have been a textbook emo were it not for the t-shirt printed “Iris Organics” with a cheesy rainbow on it.

The Witnesses stood before him still and unmoving, except for Henriksen, who began morphing slowly into someone else, someone smaller. His skin changed to a pale olive hue, and grew longer and looser, until a girl who couldn’t even be fifteen stood before him. She was almost glowing, it seemed, her skin bright. She wore a silver parka that reminded Sam, tauntingly, of the moon, watching expressionlessly from the sky.

He had no clue where that thought came from.

The young man locked eyes with the girl, and spoke to her in Italian, to which she responded in kind. Her voice, soft and serene at first, rose to a resentful, angry pitch.

The other Witnesses remained frozen, watchful, as she spoke.

“You were obsessed with that game.” She said, suddenly in English, voice even but a sour undercurrent coloring the tone. “It was the only thing you cared about. Never me. Just your stupid little figurines. I died, thinking of you, and for what? You grew to admire, worship, the man that let me die!”

He remained calm. “You made your own choices, Bianca. It took me a long time to learn that.”

She appeared close to him, right up in his face, and Sam was finally able to see what she looked like. She was so similar to the man in front of her that Sam realized they must’ve been siblings, maybe even twins.

“You could have brought me back, you know. Death should mean nothing to you!”

“I can’t. You knew that.” He pulled a sword from nowhere, practically materializing it in his hand. “Please, don’t make me have to send you to the Styx.”

She snarled at him. “It’s too late, Nico. They dragged me out of Elysium, and now I can’t go back.”

He swung the sword, and Sam could almost see it cut through the air itself, seeming wholly unnatural. The moment it made contact with the Witness, she screamed and disappeared, not reforming anywhere.

Nico made short work of the other Witnesses, none of them posing any sort of threat to him. He barely had to touch one of them and they would flicker out of existence, as if they were giving up.

He opened his hand, and the sword vanished before it hit the floor, vaporizing into mist.

“What in the goddamn hell was that?” Bobby asked roughly. Sam realized that all of them had just been standing there mutely, watching it all unfold. Bobby was the first to speak, and it snapped them all out of their stupor.

Nico turned, like he hadn’t really been expecting that. “I got rid of your Witnesses. You’re welcome.”

“That wasn’t any spell I’ve ever seen. What kind of sword was that?” Bobby asked, raising a curious eyebrow. He didn’t seem altogether pissed about the intrusion. He likely would, once he had properly assessed whether this new character was a threat or not.

Nico snorted. “Spells are for the untalented. It’s just about the right materials.”

“What are you doing here?” Dean broke in. “We had this under control.”

Nico turned an appraising eye on Dean, studied him for a moment, and rolled his eyes. “You’re half-dead. I wouldn’t call that under control.”

Sam looked at Dean, but he couldn’t see anything outwardly wrong with him. Not anything that would let an outsider get a feel on him like that.

Dean looked like a beached fish, though, extremely disconcerted. Sam had to wonder just how much he’d been downplaying his pain, up and moving like he had been even immediately after his encounter with Henriksen.

“Anyways,” Nico said. “I’ve been tracking the witnesses over several towns. I finally caught up with them here.”

“How’d it take ya that long? You walked in through my damn wall. I don’t think you struggle with the commute.” Bobby said.

“I had to figure out where they would be.” Nico said. “It’s not like I can just teleport to their current location. I don’t have GPS. And you can put the gun down. I’m not here for you.”

Sam turned around and saw that Bobby had leveled one of the guns they’d prepared for the ghosts. Either he’d switched out the ammo or he thought that Nico was a ghost himself. Even if he wasn’t, it’d still hurt. Salt in a wound.

“You can’t blame a man for taking precautions.” He said.

“If he was trying to hurt us, wouldn’t he have already?” Sam said, trying to diffuse the building tension. He didn’t trust the newcomer, not nearly, but if he could take out ghosts so easily… it’d be helpful.

“Sure, Sam. Or he could just be trying to get us to relax.” Dean said.

Nico’s eyes shot to Sam. “...Sam?” He asked. “As in Winchester?”

“Great, he’s heard of us. Probably has a grudge.” Dean complained.

“Yeah.” Sam said, ignoring his brother. “Why?”

“Well, this has been great, really, but I can’t stay. The, uh...underworld is calling me.” Nico said, darting his eyes between Sam and anything that could be used as an escape route. Sam supposed if he really wanted to he could just vaporize back into the shadows, so he wasn’t sure why he was hesitating.

There was a slow knock on the front door, and Nico sighed. “Oh, fuck. Okay. I can- I can work with this.”

Nico made his way over to the direction that the knocking had come from, Dean right up behind him, making sure he wasn’t up to anything. Sam followed from a larger distance, not sure exactly what was going on here.

Bobby groaned. “Is this still my house? I wasn’t aware I was hosting a soirée.”

Nico pulled open the door with minimal hesitation, positioning his body so that none of the others would be able to see who was on the other side.

He started speaking rapidly, and this time it wasn’t in Italian, but Greek. It sounded a little odd, not only because it was coming from a pasty kid, but also because it sounded like an entirely different dialect than anything he’d ever heard.

Someone spoke back, too quiet for Sam to properly hear the voice.

“For fuck’s sake.” Dean said, and yanked the door open, startling Nico into tripping backwards. 

Once Sam’s eyes adjusted to the light, his heart near about stopped.

There, leaning up against one of the pillars of the front stoop, was Percy, looking back with wide eyes, and more scars than Sam had ever seen on him, and an utterly stunned expression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, wanna do a fun experiment? It’s called raising dean from hell-- aka the mark on his shoulder ain’t quite what you think it is. Step one: Grab a pillow. That’s gonna be your dean. Take care of him. Make sure it’s a normal size pillow, so you can get the most obvious results. Step two: hug the pillow. Dean needs some love. :) But notice where your hands end up. Especially the right one! Could that be pillow!Dean’s shoulder? Okay, now we’re going to do another experiment. Put the pillow in hell! aka sit somewhere high up, and leave the pillow on the floor. Make sure you’re sitting like a gay (aka no feet on the floor). Now, reach down and grab the pillow with one hand only! This is what the supernatural writers want you to think happened! But you may notice, it’s much easier to get a solid grip on the pillow when you hug him. This way you won’t accidentally drop him in the pit while you’re escaping! I dunno what you guys think, but this to me says cas was totally basking in that Pure Soul Energy™ when he saved dean from hell. Take from that what you will.
> 
> Also the earlier part of the chapter was pure ASS because i had to follow some of the script action-by-action, and while technically this is what happened in canon, i don’t think that that’s how the characters, as characters should have behaved. Like…. Sam was just like, sure, more spells, seems legit. No????????? And dean was like, yeah, let’s bail on the apocalypse. NO??? I was chomping at the bit istfg. I’ve been picking the characters apart ever since the Supreme Fuckup (supernatural finale) and really just fisting their grey matter investigating what makes them tick, and while i am not a psychologist i am mentally deficit and therefore very invested in the functions of people’s brains (i read psych mags. Sue me). I also spend my free time tearing apart HnK chapters for hidden meaning at the point of Phos' suffering, so I feel slightly qualified. And I have Decided™ that yeah, their behaviours were a bit ooc. I only rewatched 4x02, so that’s all i can vouch for, but IM ANGEY.
> 
> I love all you babes <3 thanks for tolerating my footnotes. This chapter's shorter than usual, because half of it is down here lol


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck yeah i'm a writer, i write shit. lookit me go

Dean, maybe unsurprisingly, was the first one to react. He recognized Percy immediately, and had his gun up and aimed before Sam had even fully processed what he was seeing.

To be fair, the sight in front of him was difficult to process. It was  _ Percy _ , looking very much alive.

“What are you?” Dean barked. Bobby stood behind him, looking confused but wary.

Percy held his hands up, palms facing outward. “Uhh, human. I know how it looks, but please don’t kill me.”

“Give me one good reason.” Dean snarled, and Sam finally stepped forwards, eyes narrowed.

“Christo,” He said, almost hoping for black eyes. That was something he knew how to handle.

Percy’s eyes remained normal, though, that strange hue of raw seawater. He shuffled about, looking to Nico for help, although the teen looked like he felt just as useless as Percy did. “I was just here to help Neeks with the Witnesses. We’re gone, promise.”

“No.” Sam said, darkly. “If you’re not a shifter or some other sort of monster, then you’ve got a lot of talking to do.”

Dean looked as if he agreed with Sam on the sentiment, but it was different for him. He hadn’t known Percy for years. He hadn’t moved in with him. Hadn’t thought about a life together with him. Hadn’t loved him. Dean had known Percy for three days before he...died.

Percy had died.

Sam yanked Percy inside the house harshly, not being particularly gentle, and threw him on the chair at the table, Nico trailing sheepishly behind them. He marched into the kitchen and grabbed the salt, holy water, and a silver knife, putting them down roughly in front of Percy.

Was it just his imagination, or did Percy’s eyes dilate slightly when he saw the holy water?

Nevertheless, he threw it back like a shot with no prompting, poured salt on his palm and made a face, and picked up the silver knife.

“Percy, you just-” Nico warned him.

“I know.” He said. “I’ll be careful.” He made a shallow slice on the inside of his forearm, below what looked like burn scars in even, straight lines. The cut bled, but beyond that Percy remained unharmed.

Nico fished some bandages out of somewhere and handed them over to Percy, who wrapped them almost carelessly around the cut, not really paying attention to it. His eyes were fixed on Sam. 

He wasn’t a monster, then. He wasn’t possessed. It really was Percy. Percy Jackson, back from the dead.

“Oh my god.” Sam said, a surge of...something rising in his chest.

“Will someone explain to me what the damn hell is going on?” Bobby said, apparently having grown sick of being in the dark.

“Bobby, this is...” Sam’s throat caught, and he found himself unable to finish the sentence.

“Percy Jackson, sir.” Percy said, looking incredibly cowed. There was none of his usual sarcasm, either. He was just sitting there quietly, waiting for whatever reactions they had. Nico stood behind him, almost invisible, hiding back in the faint shadows.

There was something in the air.

“I know the name.” Bobby said slowly, like he was thinking hard.

“Yeah.” Dean said quietly. “He died on the ceiling, three years ago.”

Bobby’s eyes narrowed. “What in the blazes are you talking about?”

“The second fire?” Dean prompted.

Nico narrowed his eyes at Percy, like this wasn’t something he’d been privy to.

It seemed to click for Bobby, but even then he shook his head. “That ain’t it. I mean yeah, I remember that, but I never had a name for it. This is something else.”

Percy looked nervous, suddenly.

“Where… where were you?” Sam asked. “You’re alive! And you never told me?”

“I was… busy?” Percy said.

“The fuck you were.” Dean said. “You weren’t around, so you didn’t see what it did to Sam when you died. Or faked it, or whatever bullshit that was. You fucked him over!”

The shadows around Nico lengthened ominously. “Watch yourself.” He said, and despite being a gangly teenager, something in Sam was instinctively terrified of him.

Percy scratched the back of his head. “By the time I got… back, it’d been too long. I couldn’t just pop up.”

“Define ‘too long.’” Dean said.

“Six months.” Percy said. 

Sam didn’t know what to say. The way Percy was talking, it seemed as if he was implying he really had been dead… for six months, and somehow managed to come back to life, crawling out of wherever he’d gone by some miracle.

“And you started hunting? Why were you chasing the Witnesses?” Sam asked.

Percy looked at Nico, and a silent conversation seemed to pass between them. It was as if he was debating telling the truth, or brushing it to the side. In the past, Percy had had a habit of doing so when the conversation approached something he was uncomfortable with. There was a lot in his past that he hadn’t ever told Sam, and Sam hadn’t ever pushed past the point. He’d thought that Percy would tell him when he trusted him enough, on his own time.

Clearly not.

“Something’s going on behind the scenes.” Percy finally hedged. “The… uh, how do I even begin to explain this?”

“The apocalypse.” Bobby said. “That’s old news.”

“Okay, yes, there’s that, but there’s more than that.” Percy said.

Sam raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean? And how do you know all this?”

“Um, first question first.” Percy said, drumming his fingers softly. “There’s a prophecy.”

“Prophecies are a load of bull.” Bobby said. “I ain’t never come across one that wasn’t self-fulfilling.”

“Well, I’ve had firsthand experience to the contrary.” Percy said. “You ever heard of an island called Delphi?”

“You’ve talked to the Oracle?” Bobby said. He seemed incredulous, borderline disbelieving. 

Sam knew of the Oracle. He’d had his greek mythology phase just like every other twelve-year-old, and later on, read a bunch of the greek classics. But that was thousands of years ago, and there was no way that Percy would have been able to find any relics, let alone speak to the actual ancient Oracle of Delphi herself, Pythia.

“Yeah. And what we got… It sounds worse than any other I’ve heard so far.”

“Heard? Directly?” Bobby asked. “That ain’t possible, kid.”

“You just said otherwise.”

Bobby grunted in frustration. “It’s a figure of speech. These days, the best way to talk to the Oracle is to get whacked out on rare plants and see if her spirit is willing to give ya’ time of day.”

“Uh...” Percy said. “No?”

“He’s talking about the other way, Percy.” Nico said. “They’re behind the mist, remember? This is what they’ve got to work with.”

Sam had officially lost track of the conversation. All he wanted to know was why his boyfriend wasn’t dead anymore, but they were heading down the road to a theology discussion.

“Okay,” Percy said. He laid his hands flat on the table like he was spreading an invisible roadmap. “Sources aside, there’s been a prophecy. A major one.”

“You’re talking like you’ve heard multiple.”

“I have. Not the point.”

“We are talking about this later.” Bobby said, clearly very much interested in the information Percy was presenting.

The room darkened, lights flickering, then dimming. Dean brought his gun up. Sam looked around warily, trying to pinpoint the cause, but there was nothing.

“What once was separate, now is one.” Nico intoned, and Sam was about to ask what he meant, when he noticed a thin mist curling around his feet. It began thickening into a low fog, only reaching up to his ankles, but covering the entire kitchen area and spilling out into the room beyond.

“The Soldier, Boy King, and the Sons,” He continued. The room dropped in temperature, too slowly to be ghostly activity. It was almost as if the atmosphere around them was reacting to Nico’s words. “The Sea seeks help, the Stories shall merge. The clock is ticking towards the Purge.”

The temperature dropped low enough that Sam could see their breaths… Most of them. For some reason, despite the motion of their chests, Percy and Nico didn’t exhale anything.

The fog began climbing up their legs, and Dean looked like he was trying his best not to immediately freak out, though his grip on the gun tightened.

Goosebumps rose on his skin.

“But sulphur steals, ‘til debts are paid; and a fateful bond re-made.”

All at once, the temperature rose back to normal, the lights came on fully, and the fog dissipated, leaving no traces. Percy and Nico looked at each other, and burst out into silent laughter, high-fiving each other.

Sam was completely and utterly bewildered, at this point. He couldn’t possibly follow anything that was going on anymore.

“Is that it?” Bobby said. “And what the hell did you do to my wiring?”

“Nothing,” Percy said, still grinning. “And yeah, that’s the prophecy.”

“It doesn’t sound too bad.” Sam said, for lack of anything else.

“Well, you probably don’t have a lot of prophetic experience.” Nico said. “But even you should know what sulphur means. And Purge… C’mon. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you.”

Bobby leaned against the wall. “So we’re facing a double-stuffed apocalypse, then? End times on steroids?”

“Yeah.” Percy said. “And me and Nico have been trying to stop it. It’s a rough learning curve.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing all this time? Hunting? Learning how?” Sam said.

Again, Percy and Nico shared a look that probably said a lot between them.

“...Yes.” Percy said slowly. “But it’s just the two of us.”

“Which is good.” Nico said. “Because I don’t want to get the others involved. They deserve a break.”

“So do you.” Percy told Nico, straddling his chair backwards to face him. “Gods know you’ve done enough. This guilt thing isn’t good for you.”

“It’s not guilt.” Nico said. “I’m okay.”

“You say that….”

“Percy, situational awareness. They’re still trying to shoot us.”

Percy looked at them again. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, enough.” Sam said. “How are you alive? Did you actually die?”

For some odd reason, Nico studied Dean for a long moment. He seemed to come to a decision, and tapped Percy’s hand twice. They must have worked out a code. “Yes, he did.”

“What?” Sam said, expecting it but still unprepared.

“Yeah, I died.” Percy said, faking nonchalance that Sam could see straight through. “It wasn’t fun.”

“How did you get back?” Dean demanded. Sam knew what he was thinking. If Percy knew what happened to him, maybe they could get insight into Dean's situation.

“I have...connections.” Percy said. “And let’s face it, Death, as a committee, is fond of turning me a blind eye. I’m just cool like that.”

“Six months doesn’t sound like a blind eye.”

“Red tape.” Percy said. “And a long walk.”

“You’re not giving us any answers, boy.” Bobby said gruffly. “And after what you did to Sam, I’d say we deserve a few.”

“Okay, fine. Fine.” Percy said, looking a bit defeated. “Do you have a place to sit? No offence, but these chairs are not good on my tailbone.”

Bobby hiked a thumb in the direction of the sofa. “There’s a spot for ya there. Don’t touch anything. Lotta that stuff’s older than you, and evil to boot.”

Sam saw Percy try not to roll his eyes, and it was strange that despite how much time had passed, he was still able to read him so easily.

“Okay, so, how good are you with asking questions before shooting?” Percy asked once everyone had settled for the time being. Dean had materialized a beer from somewhere, and Sam was doing his best not to stare intently. He wasn’t sure if it was working.

“Depends on how quick you are to answer.” Bobby said. Sam didn’t disagree with the sentiment when it came to the other two men. He didn’t know what he would do, though. This was  _ Percy. _

“Sam...” Percy said. “There’s a lot I’ve never told you, and for that, I apologize. I hated keeping all of this from you. And, you remember when we went after the Vanishing Hitchhiker?”

Sam nodded slowly. Even then…?

“I wish I’d come clean then.”

Nico shot Percy a sharp look. “What, exactly, are you planning on telling them?”

Percy looked suddenly unsure. “Everything? Sam deserves the truth.”

Nico said something in Latin now, rounding out his mediterranean trilingual set. He seemed as if he was reminding Percy of something, or berating him.

Percy responded in kind, and Sam pulled on his knowledge of Latin gleaned from high-school textbooks, exorcisms, and old hunter lore to try and understand what they were saying. He wasn’t able to pick up much, but just based on the roots of the words, it seemed as if they were discussing… demons? Travel?

“Sam, after the ghost, when I burned on the ceiling… I burned. I died. And it sucked almost as bad as Hades. But it’s not like I came back and just wasted all my time doing nothing. That demon, the one with the yellow eyes… he kidnapped Annabeth.”

Sam and Dean shared a look when Percy mentioned the demon with the yellow eyes, but when Percy said “Annabeth,” his heart dropped. He remembered her. She was freaky smart, and she was almost a universal genius—it was somewhat intimidating. She was strong, too. She’d been through some heavy stuff, Sam could tell. And for someone like her to be under the demons’ control…

“The Yellow-Eyed demon is dead.” Dean said. “He’s been dead for more than a year.”

“Fuck!” Nico cursed. Percy slammed his fist into his knee, almost reflexively, and aimed a dark glare at nothing in particular. The atmosphere of the room grew heavy, both metaphorically and literally. There was a disconcerting pressure in the air again, like when the two of them had spoken of the prophecy. Was this connected? Was the strange kid, Nico, doing it?

“How?” Percy demanded.

“We killed him at the Devil’s Gates. You better not be expecting an apology.” Dean said.

Percy bared his teeth. “He’s the one who took Annabeth! If he’s dead, she’s...”

“We’re going to have to track down who’s got her now.” Nico said, deathly still. Sam couldn’t look at him without being reminded of a walking corpse. The creepy features of him seemed to amplify with every passing second, subtle enough that Sam couldn’t put a finger on what it was, but strong enough that the change was definitely noticeable. What sort of creature was Percy working with here?

He radiated some sort of supernatural powers that brought back unpleasant memories, but he was so familiar with Percy. Comfortable. Percy had to know something was off.

“Who was next in line?” Percy asked Nico, and Sam could see he was already starting to lose focus on their current conversation and brainstorming his next moves. It was understandable, given the circumstances, but he wanted answers.

“Percy, what’s going on? What have you been hiding?” Sam asked, though with every passing moment he grew surer he wouldn’t like the answer.

Nico was mumbling to himself, but Percy’s attention snagged when Sam called his name. “A lot.” He answered glibly, and offered a quick “ legionnaires” to Nico.

“I’d love to tell you, but priority one just became ground zero, so can we make a rain check?”

“You’ve been chasing tails for at least a year.” Dean said. “You can spare us an hour.”

The look Percy shot him was incredibly withering, but his eyes flickered over to Sam, and something seemed to come over him.

“Fine.” He said. “Nico, we’ve got to reallocate our resources. Think you can find a McDonald’s?”

Nico nodded, and passed silently from the room, pausing again to give Dean a long, searching look before heading away.

Sam didn’t hear any doors open or close, but the depressing air faded just a little, so that meant Nico must have gone.

All eyes were on Percy, now, and he didn’t have any distractions to fall back on. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“This is gonna be a lot.” Percy said. “A crappy single-sentence way of saying it would be that I hunt monsters too. Only, it’s a lot more different than that.”

Nobody said anything, so Percy exhaled awkwardly.

“Sam, you know that I’m from New York. But what you don’t know—none of you—is that New York’s become the hub of something much bigger than immigrations. There’s this thing called the Flame of the West. Every history teacher comes close to touching on it at some point, but they never actually do. It moves west with the hub of humanity, and settles there. Two thousand years ago, that hub was Rome.”

Sam didn’t understand the impromptu lesson. He couldn’t puzzle out what Percy was trying to say—the only person who seemed to be following him was Bobby.

“And as the Flame moved, so did the old-world monsters.” Percy said. “So now you have things like Echidna, Typhon, Polyphemus, Porphyrion, all camped out across the United States.”

“Those are big names.” Bobby said. “Are you saying that they’ll pop up now?”

Percy snorted. “No. We took care of them years ago.”

“…Took care of?” Bobby marveled. “There wasn’t even a peep.”

“Yes, there was.” Percy said. “You just didn’t notice them. I’ll explain in a minute.” He sighed again.

“The monsters moved, and so did the gods. They’re actually camped out above the Empire State Building right now, probably kicking back after their kids did all the work slaying those damned giants.”

“You’re saying that there are  _ gods _ living in the Empire State building?” Dean sounded incredulous, his arms folded across his chest. “And what, people magically ignore them?”

“They don’t require human sacrifices, Dean. Believe it or not, there’s more than just the two basic Christianity/Paganism categories. It’s… diverse.” Percy defended. “You’ve heard of Theseus. Perseus. Odysseus. They were half-god. And I’m pretty sure the literary world calls them ‘heroes.’”

“If I’m understanding correctly, you’re telling me there are demigods just wandering around.” Bobby said. “With the same kind of strength as Homeric legends?”

Percy waved his hand in a so-so gesture. “A lot of that stuff’s been mistranslated over the years. But yeah, there’s demigods. Monster’s favorite scapegoats. See, the monsters can’t take their wrath out on the gods, right? So they get the next best thing: their children. And...” He steadied himself. “There’s a small camp in Long Island Sound that the monsters can’t get. A safe zone. When the kids are young, around ten or so, they either die or manage to survive long enough to get to the camp, give or take a couple years. From there, they train so that they can hold their own in a fight.”

“A summer camp.” Sam said cautiously. He knew he’d gotten it right when Percy’s gaze zeroed in on him again. 

“Yeah.” He said, voice soft. “It’s called Camp Half-Blood, and I spent eight summers there before I made it out to Stanford.”

Sam couldn’t breathe. Everything seemed frozen, as if his brain was running in hyperdrive specifically so he could overprocess the moment. If he was understanding Percy correctly (and of course he was. Percy hadn’t been vague), that meant he was a demigod. A literal half-god. And not only that, but he’d been dealing with monsters since he was ten?

He would have been so strong… So how did he die?

“You’re a demigod.” Dean scoffed. “Like Hercules or something, sure.”

Bobby was eyeing Percy again. “You seem like a normal human. Are the genes recessive?”

Percy actually rolled his eyes at that. “Thank you, I try.”

“I’m serious.” Bobby said, less than pleased. “There’s nothing strange about you.”

He was wrong, though. When Nico had been around, the air had seemed stale, dark, and still. His oddities had been noticeable to Sam, and while it had seemed like only him at the time… how much of those displays had been Percy? What was he?

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Sam said. He couldn’t settle on any one emotion at the moment—sure, Percy was alive, and it was something he would have been elated about, aside from the fact that he had hidden as much as, or maybe more than Sam had. 

“Why didn’t you?” Percy shot back. “I was trying to be done with that. Believe it or not, I don’t enjoy being Hera’s chess piece. There weren’t any other major prophecies, interrelations with both camps were stable, and nobody needed a hero anymore. Believe me, I was grateful to walk away. You were my chance out.”

Sam felt his mouth grow dry. So Percy had been doing the same thing he had, huh? No wonder it had fallen apart. Two people running from monsters—maybe there was no way it would have ever succeeded.

“And after the White Lady, I was going to tell you everything. I thought that maybe you’d understand...But I didn’t get the chance.”

Sam was going to spit on Azazel’s grave a thousand times over. “You died. You’re a demigod?”

Percy threw up jazz hands. “Surprise.”

“Who?” Dean asked eagerly. Ah, there was his inner nerd. “What kind of god?”

“Poseidon.”

If Sam hadn’t been sitting, he’d be leaning against a wall for support. Percy was that strong? Son of one of the most major gods of the ages?

“You’re actually taking this pretty well.” Percy commented.

Sam looked around. Bobby was white, Dean was having some sort of internal struggle, and Sam himself felt entirely shut down. He felt disconnected from the situation. It felt like a dream.

Maybe he was dreaming. The entire situation was so surreal, and only his continued ability of introspection let him know he was awake.

“You’re half- _ god _ .” Sam said.

“Yeah.” Percy agreed. “It sucks. Doesn’t even come with dental.”

“The prophecy.” Bobby said suddenly. “Where does that come in?”

Percy leaned back, staring at the ceiling. “The Oracle spoke about it shortly after I died. It wasn’t me who heard about it, actually, but one of my friends. She had been hanging out with Rachel -the Oracle- and when she heard the Prophecy, she ran it straight to the rest of the group. It was then that they noticed Annabeth was missing. And me. And everyone–the gods, the few titans, the Party Ponies, the spirits–all our connections were silent. We had nothing, so eventually Nico started summoning shades. Even they had nothing. Well, until he found me. He couldn’t find Annabeth, though, so at least we knew she wasn’t dead. But it was like she’d fallen out of the world.

“I was in a place unlike anywhere I’d ever been, though, and I’d seen almost every part of the Underworld. Hades, Asphodel, Elysium, Tartarus, you name it. But I wasn’t there. The atmosphere...” Percy’s eyes went unfocused. “I’ll never forget it. All the mistakes, abominations, evils, they were cast into Tartarus. It’s the monsters’ homebase. But this… this was just as bad. Worse, maybe.”

Dean was staring at Percy with an odd expression, like he was trying not to look at a train crash in progress. He seemed like he recognized what Percy was talking about, though, which could only mean one thing.

A lump formed in Sam’s throat. Percy couldn’t be talking about Hell, right? There was no way Azazel killed him and sent him to Hell.

Only, it seemed like there was every way.

“It took...” Here Percy hesitated. “It took some time to get out. Every day, I had to be on my toes. It was… I was…” His face shut down, but more than that, the rest of him did, too. It was as if he was a wind-up doll whose coils had finally stopped springing, and he was left without momentum.

“That’s enough.” Dean said quietly. Percy didn’t seem to hear him, though. He’d withdrawn completely.

“Percy?” Sam asked. Again, he failed to respond. He was lost in his own head, most likely suffering flashbacks.

The air went heavy, and Sam had never been so relieved for the appearance of something so creepy. 

Nico walked silently in the room, and the moment he saw Percy, he sighed tiredly. “This is why you don’t press too hard, dumbasses.” He took something out of his pocket and pressed it into Percy’s hand, and then pushed his hand up to his mouth.

Percy accepted it absently, eating whatever it was without any acknowledgement while Nico patted his head encouragingly. It took a couple seconds, but he came back to them, looking disoriented. 

Percy threw up a cheery mask the moment he was back to himself, but it was far too late.

“Breathe. I’ll take over.” Nico told him. He turned his attention coldly to the hunters. “I don’t know what you asked, but it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that we’ve got just as big a part in stopping this apocalypse as you do. If you want to get off your high horses and help us, amazing. But don’t you dare get in our way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, if only my trauma could be cured by the lemon bars of the gods! Alas, i will sit here and write marauders’ text fics :>
> 
> bruhh it was so hard to not forget about this chapter and just go write useless groupchat shenanigans. you're welcome, dudes.


End file.
